'. p. L, 



D. C C/ass 
Book 



E. C. Class Jj D 
Book.ff/^ 



bureau of Educa.. 
A. L. A. Columbian Library 

Chiicago 1893 



Given by . 



LIBRARY 

UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 



Entry Catalogue Number 




(•|;iss Y^l 
Book ■^\2. 



C^^^X 



THE GENESIS 



' <n.,: 



OF 



THE NEW ENOLAND 



CHURCHES. 



By LEONARD BACON. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 







NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 



FRANKLIN 8 Q II A U E. 



18 7 4. 



'.Tj/% 



Co v^ "^^ 



\5 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at AVasiiington. 

Id excb. 
D. of C Tnh Li%. 

MIG 26 \90t» 



f 



^■^ 



-:/(/ 



TO ALL WHO HONOR THE MEMORY OP 

THE PILGRIM FATHERS, 

AND ESPECIALLY TO THE 

FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST IN NEW HAVEN, 

WHICH I SERVED IN THE PASTORAL OFFICE THROUGH MORE THAN FORTY 

YEARS, THIS ENDEAVOR TO "BRING FORTH FRTIT IN 

OLD AGE" IS RESPECTFULLY OFFERED. 



3(o5^ 



PREFACE. 



A FEW words will sufficiently explain to the reader of 
this book the design of the author. 

The history of Protestant Christianity in the United 
States of America is the history, not of a national church, 
but of voluntary churches. I have attempted to show how- 
it began, and to trace the origin and development of the 
idea which generated the churches of New England. 

It is hardly necessary to say that the Baptist churches 
— a name which, in the United States, comprehends more 
churches than any other save one — are constituted on the 
same platform of polity with the church which came in 
the Mayflower. I have had no occasion to speak of them 
or of their influence in giving character to our American 
civilization ; inasmuch as the history of churches bearing 
that name, on this side of the Atlantic, begins later than 
the latest date in the volume now submitted to the public. 
It has been claimed for those churches that, from the age 
of the lleformation onw-ard, they have been always fore- 
most and always consistent in maintaining the doctrine 
of religious liberty. Let me not be understood as calling 
in question their right to so great an honor. 

My life has been too busy for researches among the re- 
motest sources of history. The story in this volume is de- 
rived chiefly from works which may be found in all good 
libraries. Instead of going to the Bj-itish Museum that I 
might inspect the editio priiicejps of some Separatist book 



Vlll PREFACE. 

for which the author was hanged, I have made use of the 
abstracts and extracts in Ilanbury's " Historical Memori- 
als." The documents which were collected, arranged, and 
published by the late Dr. Alexander Young, with his care- 
ful annotations, in those two volumes, the " Chronicles of 
the Pilgrims " and the " Chronicles of Massachusetts," were 
worth more to me for my purpose than the originals from 
which he copied them could have been. Inasmuch as I had 
before me Bradford's " History of Pljanouth Plantation," 
transcribed and published at the expense of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, with annotations by its learned 
secretary, Mr. Deane, there was no need of my crossing the 
ocean to consult the venerable autograph which, having 
been stolen from the Prince Library when the Old South 
Meeting-house was occupied by British soldiers, was found 
after many years in the library of Fulham Palace. I have 
been as well pi'ovided for the work which I have attempt- 
ed as I could liave been if the Bishop of London and the 
Queen of Great Britain had not said their ^'' JVo?i possu- 
7nus,^^ or if the omnipotent Parliament had authorized the 
rendition of the precious relic to its rightful proprietor. 

The Prince Library can not be named without honor- 
able mention of its founder, Thomas Prince, the earliest 
American bibliographer, whose " Annals of N^ew Eng- 
land" — though less impoi'tant as an authority since the re- 
covery of Bradford's History than it was when Dr. Young- 
incorporated much of it into his " Chronicles" — is so help- 
ful a guide in the study of our history, whether of church 
or state. The title of his work shows that he did not forget 
how different is the task of the annalist, collecting facts 
and arranging them in strictly chronological order as in a 
table of dates, from that of the historian, who, dealing with 
the same facts, describes them in their significance and 
their natural connections. Whatever disappointment may 



PREFACE. IX 

be experienced by a reader who opens Felt's " Ecclesias- 
tical Histor}^ of ISTew England" with the expectation of 
finding on its pages a continnous and lively narrative, the 
reason of that disappointment will be that, while all the 
facts of the story are there, the book, instead of being 
really history, is little else than a chronological arrange- 
ment of events, set down with exemplary carefulness and 
diligence, but almost as dry as a volume of statistics. I 
take pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to the 
annalists and to the collectors and editors of historical doc- 
nments — to Felt, Young, Prince, and Hanbury, as well as 
to the Anglican Strype. I do not profess to have gone 
behind them for the facts which they give me ; but, on the 
other hand, I do not regard my work as bearing any re- 
semblance to theirs. I have only attempted to construct 
a story out of the materials which they, and others like 
them, have provided. 

This book, then, is offered to readers as a histor}- digest- 
ed from materials wliich others ha\e prepared for me. 
It makes no profession of bringing to light new facts from 
documents heretofore inedited, or from black-letter books 
heretofore overlooked. It simply tells an old story, giving 
perhaps here and there a new interpretation or a new em- 
phasis to some undisputed fact. My purpose has been to 
tell the story clearly and fairly, not for the instruction or 
delight of antiquarians, nor merely for those with whom 
church history is a professional study, but for all sorts of 
intelligent and thoughtful readers. He who writes only 
for scholars, or for the men of some learned profession, 
can say, " Fit audience let me find, though few ;" but my 
labor has been thrown away if the story which I have writ- 
ten is not so told as to invite the attention and to stir the 
sympathies of the many. Those who read the story will 
understand, I trust — what many are ignorant of, and Mdiat 



PREFACE. 



some historians have not sufficiently explained — the differ- 
ence between " our Pilgrim Fathers" and " our Puritan 
Fathers." In the old world on the other side of the ocean, 
the Puritan was a Nationalist, believing that a Cln-istian na- 
tion is a Christian church, and demanding that the Church 
oi England sliould be thoi'oughly reformed ; while the 
Pilgrim was a Separatist, not only from the Anglican 
Prayer-book and Queen Elizabeth's episcopacy, but from 
all national churches. Between them there was sharp con- 
tention — a controversy quite as earnest and almost as bitter 
as that which they both had with the ecclesiastico-political 
power that oppressed them both, iining and imprisoning 
the Puritan, and visiting upon the Separatist the added 
penalties of exile and the gallows. The Pilgrim wanted 
liberty for himself and his wife and little ones, and for his 
brethren, to walk with God in a Christian life as the rules 
and motives of such a life were revealed to him from God's 
Word. For that he went into exile ; for that he crossed 
the ocean ; for that he made his home in a wilderness. 
The Puritan's idea was not liberty, but right government 
in church and state — such government as should not only 
permit him, but also compel other men to w^alk in the 
right way. Of all this the ingenuous reader will find, 1 
think, some illustration in the history before him. 

The words, written or spoken, of the actors in the stoi-y 
are often introduced for tbe sake of bringing the reader 
into closer connection with the men whom I describe and 
with their times ; but, in so doing, I have not always 
deemed it necessary to transcribe with scrupulous exact- 
ness every pleonasm or tautology, and every careless mis- 
location of words in the structure of a sentence. If in 
any instance I have misrepresented the meaning of a 
quotation, let me receive such censure as the unfairness 
may seem to deserve. Thouo;h I am not aware that I have 



PREFACE. 



used a larger liberty in this respect tlian is conceded to 
writers of history, I may say that, if I have erred, the error 
was because of my desire to make the meaning of every 
sentence clear, at the first glance, to an ordinarily intelli- 
gent reader. 

The history of the colonization of New England has been 
admirably written by Dr. Palfrey ; and it would have been 
folly in me to attempt a repetition of what he has done so 
well. Mine is a very different undertaking. The story 
which I tell is the story of an idea slowly making its way 
against prejudices, interests, and passions— a story of faitli 
and martyrdom, of heroic endeavor and heroic constancy. 
It includes only so much of secular history as is involved 
in the history of the idea, and of the men whom it pos- 
sessed, and who labored and suffered to make it a reality 
in the world of fact. I have attempted nothing moie than 
a humble contribution to our ecclesiastical history— only 
a book of Genesis, which, had I written it earlier, might 
have been followed by a Puritan Exodus. Mr. Punchard's 
"History of Congregationalism," and Dr. Waddington's 
most elaborate " Congregational History" (of which a sec- 
ond volume has been lately published), cover a much wider 
field tlian I have ventured to traverse. 

I take the liberty of expressing here my thanks to Pro- 
fessor Fisher of Yale College, who has kindly assisted in 
revising the proof-sheets of this volume, and whose sugges- 
tions have contributed to its accuracy especially in the ear- 
lier chapters. In the later and most important chapters, 
beginning with Chapter X., I have had also the benefit of 
corrections and suggestions from the Eev. Dr. Henry M. 
Dexter, who is better acquainted, I suppose, than any other 
man with every foot-print of the Pilgrim Fathers, at Scroo- 
by, at Amsterdam, at Leyden, or in New England. Yet I 
must not represent him as responsible for every thing on 



xii PREFACE. 

those pages ; for, being less imbued than he with the anti- 
quarian spirit, I have sometimes ventured not to follow 
where he seemed to lead me. For example, when he tells 
me that the first governor of Salem, under the Massachu- 
setts corporation, wrote himself John Endecott, I can not 
doubt the fact, yet I leave the name in the form in which 
it has passed into history and poetry — John Endicott. In 
regard to any more important matter of fact, I should not 
dare to reject the advice of a friend so learned and so ac- 
(Mirate. 

L. B. 

New Haven, July 1, 1874, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I.— A.D. 1-100. 

Page 

What was in the Beginning 17 

CHAPTER II.— A.D. 100-1500. 
From the Primitive to the Papal 34 

CHAPTER III.— A.D. 1517-1555. 
What the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century did for Church Pohty. . 49 

CHAPTER IV.— A.D. 1370-15G0. 
The English Reformation and the Puritans GO 

CHAPTER v.— A.D. 1560-1583. 
Reformation without Tarrying for Any 73 

CHAPTER VI.— A.D. 1583-1587. 
Separatism before the High Commissioners 91 

CHAPTER VII.— A.D. 1590-1592. 
Controversy under Difficulties. — Nationalism, Conformist and Puritan, 

against Separatism 110 

CHAPTER VIIL— A.D. 1592-1593. 
The Martyr Church : the Jails and the Gallows 131 

CHAPTER IX.— A.D. 1555-1593. 
John Penry, the Martyr for Evangelism 155 

CHAPTER X.— A.D. 1587-1608. 
Persecution and Exile. — The Church at Scrooby 186 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XI.— A.D. 1608-lGlG. 

Pace 

The Separatists in Amsterdam 216 

CHAPTER XII.— A.D. IGOO-IGIS. 
The Sojourn at Leyden. — John Robinson a Pastor and an Author 228 

CHAPTER XIIL— A.D. 1G17-1G20. 
Struggles and Sacrifices in a Great Attempt 253 

CHAPTER XIV.— A.D. 1G20. 
From Leyden to Southampton. — Robinson's Pastoral Letter. — The Pil- 
grims the Reformers of Separatism 284 

CHAPTER XV.— A.D. 1G20. 

Tiie Voyage of the Mdyjiower, E.xploration, and the Landing of the 

Pilgrims 306 

CHAPTER XVL— A.D. 1G21. 
The First Year at Plymouth 323 

CHAPTER XVIL— A.D. 1G22, 1G2;!. 
Adversity and Progress. — Weston's Colony, and what came of it 357 

CHAPTER XVIII.— A.D. 1624,1625. 
Attempts of Nationalism against the Pilgrim Church 390 

CHAPTER XIX.— A.D. 1G25-1G29. 
The Pilgrim Colony Abandoned by the Puritan Adventurers. — Prosper- 
ity at Plymouth. — Death of Robinson. — The Leyden Remnant 421 

CHAPTER XX.— A.D. 1624-1629. 
The Beginning of a Puritan Colony in New England, and what came 
of it 446 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Compact in the Cabin of the "Mayflower" Fronli.yiiece. 

St. Alban's Hall, Oxford (Penry's College) Faces p. 156 

SCROOBY • • 202 

Leyden • • 2.S3 

The Embarkation at Delft-Haven " 280 

Capk Cod (from Young) •' 308 

Plymouth (from Young) " 3 1(! 

Plymouth — Burial Hill " 318 

Sabbath in the Common House at Plymouth '• 320 

The " Mayflower " 322 

The Return of the " Mayflower" '' '537 

Edward Winslow " 373 

Pilgrim Autographs 44i> 

•fOHN Endicott " 4.54 



O God I beneath Thy guiding hand, 
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea ; 

And when they trod the wintry strand, 

With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee. 

Thou heard'st, well pleased, the song, the jjrayer- 
Thy blessing came ; and still its jiower 

Shall onward to all ages Ijear 
The memory of that holy hour. 

What change ! through pathless wilds no more 
The fierce and naked savage roams ; 

Sweet praise, along the cultured shore. 
Breaks from ten thousand happy homes. 

Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God 
Came with those exiles o'er the waves ; 

And where their pilgrim feet have trod, 
The God they trusted guards their graves. 

And here Thy name, O God of love. 
Their children's cliildren shall adore, 

Till these eternal hills remove, 

And spring adorns the earth no more. 



THE GENESIS 

OF THE 

NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 

In the beginning, Christianity was simply Gospel. Eccle- 
siastical organization was not the cause, but the effect of life. 
Churches were constituted by the spontaneous association 
of believers. Individuals and families, drawn toward each 
other by their common trust in Jesus the Christ, and their 
common interest in the good news concerning the kingdom 
of God, became a community united, not by external bonds, 
but by the vital force of distinctive ideas and principles. 
New affections became the bond of a new bi'otherhood, and 
the new brotherhood, with its mutual duties and united re- 
sponsibilities, became an organized society. The ecclesias- 
tical polity of the apostles was simple — a living growth, not 
an artificial construction. 

How was it at Jerusalem? A few persons — about one 
hundred and twenty in all — after the ascension of their Lord, 
were in the practice of assembling in an upper room, which 
seems to have been the head-quarters of the eleven who had 
been nearest to him, and whom the others recognized as 
leaders. These persons were Jews, whose distinction from 
their countrymen was that, having been followers of Jesus 

B 



18 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. I. 

before his ignominious death, they had not lost their confi- 
dence in him ; but, in the face of an immense and triumphant 
majority, believed that though he had been rejected by the 
priests and rulers of the nation, and crucified by the Roman 
power, he was the Messiah risen from the dead, and invested 
with all authority on earth and in heaven. Waiting for 
some new manifestation of his glory, they "continued with 
one accord in prayer and supplication " — not those of the 
sterner sex only, as if they Avere planning a revolutionary 
movement in the state, or were setting up a new school in 
philosophy, but the men " with the women, and Mary, the 
mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Thus they were 
unconsciously forming that new commonwealth of men and 
women, and of households, united by personal attachment 
to Jesus, and living in the atmosphere of worship — that com- 
monwealth of faith and love which was to realize in its fut- 
ure all the promise of a new earth encircled by new heavens. 
At first the few disciples seem not to have thought much 
about how their society should be organized and its affairs 
administered, their minds being otherwise occupied. The 
earliest appearance of any thing like organization among 
them is when it seemed necessary that one of them should 
be designated and recognized as an apostle in the place that 
had been made vacant by the defection and death of Judas. 
On that occasion the w^hole proceeding, though essentially 
theocratic in its spirit, was democratic in its form. It seems 
to have been doubtful which of the two brethren toward 
whom the minds of the assembly had been turned was best 
qualified for the work of an apostle. An expedient was re- 
sorted to, which, had the assembly been unanimous concern- 
ing the superior fitness of either candidate, would have been 
preposterous. The question whether Barsabas or Matthias 
should be " numbered with the eleven apostles " was decided 
by lot, religiously, and with prayer that thus God's will 
might be manifested. The religious use of the lot for the 
decision of doubtful questions was customary among the 



f 

A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 19 

Jews from the earliest period of their history, but no other 
instance of it ajjpears in the New Testament. 

On the fiftieth day after that Passover at which Christ was 
crucified, the new dispensation which had been prepared in 
his life and death, and completed in his resurrection and as- 
cension, was publicly introduced by the manifestation of a 
special divine presence, the promised Holy Spirit illuminat- 
ing and guiding the apostles. Suddenly the one hundred 
and twenty became three thousand. Of this growing multi- 
tude it is said that " they continued in the apostles' doctrine 
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers." 
In other words, the " three thousand souls " were bound to- 
gether by their constant attendance on the apostles' teaching, 
and their sympathy of thought and feeling with the move- 
ment which those witnesses for Christ were leading; they 
had a certain distinctive practice of breaking bread together, 
as if they were all one family, and they continually prayed 
together. Their new ideas and new sympathies and hopes 
were a bond of union ; and though not yet separated from 
the Jewish people, nor anticipating such a separation, they 
were beginning to be a distinct community with a life of 
their own — a community almost unorganized, so far as the 
record shows, and yet distinct in the midst of the Jewish na- 
tion, like that nation in the midst of the Roman Empire. A 
new and unique commonwealth had begun to live, and must 
needs grow into some organized form according to its nature. 

How, then, shall the new community be organized ? What 
officers and functionaries shall it have ? How shall it be 
governed ? The silence of the record seems to show that 
the apostles, busy with their work of teaching, daily repeat- 
ing to the thousands of new disciples the remembered words 
of their Master, telling as eye-witnesses the story of Jesus 
from his baptism to his ascension, and preaching the good 
news of the kingdom, gave themselves little concern before- 
hand about the organization of the community which was 
coming into existence as the result of their testimony con- 



20 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, I. 

cerning the resurrection and glory of the crucified Christ. 
Yet something of organization was inevitable, and could not 
be long deferred. To sustain so large a community — so sud- 
denly constituted, and including multitudes who had come 
to Jerusalem only as pilgrims, many of them from distant 
regions — large contributions were necessary, and were made 
by those who had any thing to give. In the emergency, all 
that they had was thrown, as it were, into a common stock ; 
for such as had convertible property of any kind sold it, and 
made generous distribution of the proceeds to all that were 
in want. When this liberality is first mentioned [Acts ii., 
44, 45], it is as if the distribution were made by the donors 
themselves, or by their personal friends, without any formal 
arrangement. Afterward [iv., 34, 35], when the work had be- 
come more arduous, and when those of the disciples who 
had " lands or houses," in Jerusalem or near it, sold them for 
the benefit of the common cause, the distribution seems to 
have been in a more systematic way under the direction of 
the apostles. But after a while the number included in the 
new community had been so multiplied, and the amounts to 
be received and distributed had become so great, that these 
methods were found unsatisfactory. Then it was — and ap- 
parently not till then — that special ofiicers or commissioners 
were appointed to that service. 

The procedure in making the appointment was full of a 
religious spirit, and at the same time democratic. It may 
be compared with a parallel passage in the history of the 
Wesleyan polity. After Wesleyanism, with its exquisitely 
adjusted organization, had become powerful in England, and 
while John Wesley was still holding the reins of power, he 
undertook to tell, at one of the conferences of his helpers, 
what his power was, and how he came by it. He told how 
a few persons came to him, first in London, and then in other 
places, desiring that he would advise them and pray with 
them. "The desire," said he, "was on their part, not on 
mine " — " but I did not see how I could refuse them my help 



A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IX THE BEGINNING. 21 

and be guiltless before God. Here commenced my power — 
namely, a power to appoint when, where, and how they 
should meet, and to remove those whose life showed that 
they had no desire to flee from the wrath to come. And 
this power remained the same whether the people meeting 
together were twelve, twelve hundred, or twelve thousand." 
After a time, the people who had thus come under his care 
and direction proposed a subscription of quarterly payments 
for certain common interests — such as rent and rej^air of the 
building in which they held their meetings — and he permit- 
ted them to subscribe, "Then I asked," so he continued the 
story, " ' Who will take the trouble of receiving this money 
and paying it where it is needful ?' One said, ' I will do it, 
and keep the account for you ;' so here was the first steward. 
Afterward I desired one or two more to help me as stewards, 
and in process of time a greater number. Let it be remem- 
bered it was I myself, and not the people, who chose the 
stewards, and appointed to each the distinct work wherein 
he was to help me as long as I chose." He gave a similar 
account of his power over the preachers, whether as individ- 
uals or as assembled in conference. Without raising any 
question as to the wisdom or the rightfulness of the autoc- 
racy which Wesley asserted over the voluntary association 
by which he was hoping to revive religion in the Church of 
England, we can not but observe the contrast between his 
account of Avhat he did in the appointment of receiving and 
disbursing officers in the community which he was found- 
ing, and Luke's account of what the apostles did in the 
appointment of similar officers for the community under their 
teaching at Jerusalem. 

The apostles seem to have been j^roceeding on Wesley's 
plan, Avhich was natural and reasonable in the circumstances. 
Offerings for the support of the community had been brought 
to them, and the distribution seems to have been made by 
them personally, or by others acting for them. A complaint 
had arisen that the distribution was not perfectly equitable. 



22 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. I. 

lu dealing with that complaint the apostles convoked not a 
conference of preachers only, whom they had taken under 
their direction and control as their " helpers " in the work, 
but " the multitude of the disciples." Instead of exjDlaining 
how it was that the power of appointing stewards fell into 
their hands, and how reasonable it was that they should re- 
tain the power, they refused to have any burden of that 
kind laid upon them. The financial affairs of the growing 
community were not to be managed by them nor by their 
agents. " It is not meet," said they, " that we should leave 
the word of God and serve tables." Their proposal was that 
special officers for this trust should be designated by popular 
election. " Brethi'en," said they, " look ye out among you 
seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of 
wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But 
we" — your teachers and the commissioned witnesses for 
Christ — we, instead of burdening ourselves with your af- 
fairs — " will give ourselves continually to prayer and to 
the ministry of the word."' 

In this record of an office instituted by the vote of a 
church meeting, and of officers designated by " the whole 
multitude of disciples " acting as electors, we have an expla- 
nation of passages that might otherwise be doubtful touch- 
ing the organization and polity of the apostolic churches as 
described or implied in the New Testament. Having seen 
that the process of organization in the mother church at Je- 
rusalem was essentially democratic while under the immedi- 
ate guidance of the apostles, we need positive information to 
convince us that in other places the process by which be- 
lievers in Christ became an organized body was materially 

' The original shows that when the apostles say, "It is not meet that we 
leave the Word of God," and " We will give ourselves to prayer," etc., the 
pronoun is emphatic; but when they say, "Whom we may appoint," etc., 
the pronoun, being merely implied in the form of the verb, can have no spe- 
cial emphasis, but must be understood as including the multitude of disciples 
with the apostles. See the entire story. Acts vi. 



A.D. 1-100,] WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 23 

different. But there is no such information. On the con- 
trary, there are indications that in every place the society of 
believers in Christ was a little republic. 

We o-et glimpses of the church at Antioch, which soon 
became, not less than that at Jerusalem, a metropolitan cen- 
tre of Christian ideas and enterprises. Even in its origin, it 
startled the Pharisaic portion of the Jerusalem Church by 
receiving into fellowship unproselyted Gentiles. It was a 
community by virtue of the new faith which the members 
of it had received, and which bound them to each other. 
Some of its members were prophets and teachers, but all 
were brethren. It undertook for itself, at a divine sugges- 
tion, the first formal mission for the propagation of the Gos- 
pel through the Gentile world. When invaded by men from 
Judea, teaching, in the name of the original apostles, that the 
Gospel of Christ was to impose the ceremonial and national 
law of Moses on all Gentile believers every where, it resisted 
them with strenuous disputation, and instead of waiting for 
a rescript or a bull from Jerusalem, it sent its own message 
thither, not only to learn what the facts were there, but also 
to tell what the facts were at Antioch, and to show that 
God's blessing had attested the genuineness of a Gospel 
without Judaism. Thus it obtained from the apostles and 
elders at Jerusalem, and from " the whole church there," a 
conclusive declaration in behalf of a Christianity free for all 
nations.^ 

We get more than glimpses of the church at Corinth. We 
see its parties and disputes ; its disorderly and almost tur- 
bulent assemblies; its gross offender, whose sin was a re- 
proach to the whole body while he remained uncensured, 
and on whom the heaviest censure must therefore be inflicted 
by the many in a full assembly ; its faults and excesses, in- 
cidental to an ecclesiastical democracy ; the strange diversity 
and multiplicity of gifts among its members ; and, at the 



■ Acts xi., 19-30; xiii., 1-3; xiv., 2G-28 ; xv., 1-35; Gal. ii., 1-14. 



24 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. I. 

same time, its ready submission to rebuke and advice from 
Paul its founder. All that we see of it in the two epistles 
addressed to it, or in the historic record, shows us an intense 
vitality working in discordant elements to bring them into 
unity — an organizing force striving against tendencies to an- 
archy, but the organization not yet complete — a fermenting 
chaos, as it were, of Greek, Jewish, and Roman materials ; 
seething with enthusiasms, speculations, infirmities, and er- 
rors; yet hallowed by the formative Spirit brooding over it, 
and the light of divine truth and love shining into it.^ 

Every reader of the New Testament books may gather up 
for himself the hints which they give, incidentally, about the 
churches of Galatia, or the saints at Philippi " with the 
bishops and deacons," or " the Church of the Thessalonians," 
or " the seven churches of Asia," or the seemingly unorgan- 
ized fraternity of believers at Rome. He may observe the 
traces and rudiments of organization among " the holy and 
faithful brethren in Christ " at Colosse, or among those whom 
Peter and James and the author of the Epistle to the He- 
brews addressed in their writings. He may scrutinize the 
pastoral epistles to ascertain how far the development of 
ecclesiastical institutions had advanced in the latest years 
of the apostle Paul. For the purposes of this history, it will 
be enough to give some results of such an inquiry without 
repeating the process. 

I. The churches instituted by the apostles were local in- 
stitutions only. Nothing like a national church, distinct and 
individual among co-ordinate national churches — nothing like 
a provincial church, having jurisdiction over many congre- 
gations within certain geographical boundaries, natural or po- 
litical — appears in the writings or acts of the apostles. A 
church, as mentioned in those venerable documents, is always 
local or parochial, the church of some town or municipality, 
like Ephesus or Thyatira, Corinth or Cenchrea, Thessalonica 

' Acts xviii., 1-18. Epistles to the Corinthians, /jassj/w. 



A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 25 

or Philippi. To»say that the church of a given place was 
always congregational, in the sense of never meeting for wor* 
ship in two places at once, or of not being divided into two 
or more assemblies, with one body of "elders" or of "bishops 
and deacons," would be to say what can hardly be proved. 
But that the organized church, in the primitive age of 
Christianity, Avas always a local institution — never national, 
never provincial or diocesan — is a proposition which few will 
deny. 

II. Each local church was complete in itself, and was held 
responsible to Christ for its own character, and the character 
of those whom it retained in its fellowship. The apostles, 
indeed, had a certain authority in all the churches, as they 
have now in all churches built on their foundation, for they 
were Christ's commissioned witnesses to testify what he had 
taught, as well as the facts of his life and of his resurrection 
and ascension. If a question arose involving a doubt as to 
the nature and extent of the new kingdom of heaven — for 
example, the question whether all converts to Christ must be 
naturalized in the Hebrew commonwealth, and so brought 
under the restrictions and obligations of the national law ; or 
the question whether, in the fellowship of Christ's disciples, 
there should be a caste distinction between converted Jews 
and converted Greeks or Romans — there might be " no small 
dissension and disputation," as happened at Antioch and in 
many other places ; but if the question could not be settled 
in that way — if the disputants could not, by arguments from 
the prophetic Scriptures and from the story of the Gospel as 
they had received it, bring each other and the church to 
agree in a common conclusion — the apostles were of course 
appealed to as most likely to know the principles of the Gos- 
pel and their application, or, in other words, as most likely 
to know the mind of Christ. 

The reference from Antioch to Jerusalem' was a reference 

' Acts XV. 



26 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. I. 

to the apostles foi* information concerning the nature and 
genius of that Gospel which they were commissioned to pub- 
lish, and which, at that time, had not been put upon record 
in any authoritative Scripture. If we permit the story to 
speak for itself, we see that the reference was not made be- 
cause the church at Jerusalem was supposed to have a 
metropolitan jurisdiction over the church in the capital of 
Syria, but because some ill-informed and narrow-minded men 
from Judea had alleged that the practice at Jerusalem under 
the teaching of the oi'iginal apostles was opposite to the 
practice at Antioch and in the churches founded by Paul 
and Barnabas, whose authority as apostles was itself in ques- 
tion. What the brethren at Antioch wanted was informa- 
tion, full and conclusive, on a question of fact, and that in- 
formation could be obtained at Jerusalem, if they would send 
competent messengers to get it. The question of fact was : 
Did the original apostles, in the holy city of the Jews, preach 
another Gospel than that which was preached by the new 
apostle to the Gentiles? Had they contradicted that cath- 
olic doctrine of justification by faith without the deeds of 
the law, on which the church at Antioch was founded, and 
which had been proclaimed so widely by the missionaries 
from that new centre of evangelization ? The party which 
Paul afterward stigmatized as "the concision" — the narrow, 
ultra-conservative, anti-evangelical party of the apostolic age 
— had begun to show itself; and it must be encountered and 
put down at Jerusalem as well as at Antioch. So far as the 
two churches were concerned, the procedure was not an ap- 
peal from an inferior court to a higher, but only the sending 
of a committee from the one to confer with the other, so 
that there should be no misunderstanding between them on 
a question of great interest to both. 

III. Particular churches, in that age, were related to each 
other as constituent portions of the Universal Church. Their 
unity was their one faith and hope. It was the unity of 
common ideas and principles distinguishing them from all the 



A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 27 

world besides — of common interests and efforts, of common 
trials and perils, and of mutual affection. It was manifested 
not in their subjection to a common jurisdiction, nor in dog- 
matic formularies, nor in identity of liturgical forms, but 
in their common willingness to labor and suffer for Christ, 
and to do good in his name. When in that conference at 
Jerusalem it had come to be clearly understood that the 
Gospel in Palestine and the Gospel in Syria and Cilicia, and 
the regions beyond, were one Gospel, and when James, Ce- 
phas, and John "gave the right hands of fellowship to Paul 
and Barnabas," one permanent manifestation of the unity 
thus ascertained and professed was stipulated for. Paul tells 
us what the stipulation was — " Only that we should remem- 
ber the poor, the same which I also was forward to do."^ 
The " contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem," which 
Paul had been concerned in at Antioch, from the beginning 
of his labors there,^ and which he was zealous for wherever 
he went,^ answered the purpose, which is more imperfectly 
answered by doctrinal standards and books of common 
prayer, by ruling priesthoods and ruling preacherhoods, or 
by representative assemblies receiving appeals and com- 
plaints from all points of the compass, and exercising juris- 
diction co-extensive with the boundaries of nations. One 
word [Koivwria — koinonia'\, in its twofold meaning, was at once 
the "contribution" for impoverished and suffering brethren 
and the " communion " of the saints. As the unity of the 
three thousand, after the day of Pentecost, and then of the 
five thousand, was manifested in their generous and loving 
koino7iia — when none of them said that aught of the things 
which he possessed was his own, but they had " all things 
common ;" so afterward, when " it pleased them of Macedo- 
nia and Achaia" to do the same sort of thing for suffering 
brethren whom they had never seen, that contribution of 
theirs was the recognition and manifestation of unity. The 

1 Gal. ii., 9, 10. = Acts xi., 27-30. => 1 Cor. xvi., 1 ; 2 Cor., viii., ix. 



28 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. I. 

communion " in things carnal," expressed and testified the 
communion in "things spiritual." ^ More significant than 
any other symbol could have been, such transactions were 
a demonstration of the fact that all the jDarticular churches, 
however separated by distance, or diversified in forms and 
circumstances, were the one Catholic Church of Christ. In 
this Avay it became palpable that believers in Christ, wher- 
ever dispersed, were members of one holy commonwealth, 
and that there was " one body and one spirit, even as they 
were called in one hope of their calling." 2 

IV. In all the churches there was one rule to be observed 
in dealing with offenders. Christ had given an exj^licit law : 
" If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him 
his fault between thee and him alone ; if he shall hear thee, 
thou hast gained thy brother. But if he W' ill not hear thee, 
then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of 
tW' o or three witnesses every word may be established. And 
if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church : but 
if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a 
heathen man and a publican."^ It would be preposterous 
to suppose that when the apostles gathered their converts 
in one place and another into societies for spiritual com- 
munion and fraternal helpfulness, they were forgetful of that 
rule, or that in any arrangements which they made for the 
working of such societies that rule was superseded. 

V. The earliest stated assemblies of Christian Avorshipers 
were formed on the model of the synagogue, with its simple 
arrangements for orderly worship and for instruction out of 
the Scriptures, rather than of the Temple with its priesthood 
and its ritual. Centuries before the coming of Christ, there 
grew up in Palestine, and afterward among the Jews of 
the disijersion, a religious institution which has outlived the 
Temple, the sacrifices, and the altar of ancient Judaism — the 
simple institution of local assemblies on the Sabbath-day for 

1 Kom. XV., 27. ^ Eph. iv., 4. = Matt, xviii., 15-17. 



A.D. 1-100.] WHAT AVA^ IX THE BEGINNING. 29 

prayer, and for the public reading and explanation of the 
holy books. In the synagogue, as may be seen now wher- 
ever there are Jews enough for a meeting, there was the 
worship of God without priest or altar — an intelligent wor- 
ship, impressive in its simplicity. The Sabbath created for 
itself the synagogue, and thus became a day of public wor- 
ship every where, instead of being only a day of religious 
abstinence from labor and of home enjoyment. The earliest 
Christians, whether in Palestine or in any other country, 
were Jews, or " devout " Gentiles, who found in the Gospel, 
not a new religion, but the fulfillment of God's ancient prom- 
ises; and on all sides they were regarded as a Jewish sect, 
like the Pharisees or the Sadducees, though more obnoxious 
because of the newness and the revolutionary tendency of 
their opinions. In whatever place they were excluded from 
the assemblies of the Old-school Jews, or withdrew of their 
own choice, they became a Christian synagogue. Perhaps 
in some instances the synagogue itself became Christian. 
In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, two 
words — EKKXrjtria [ecclesio], and ffuvoywy// [synagoge] — are 
used interchangeably for the word which in the English 
Bible is "congregation." Once in the New Testament the 
latter word is used to denote a Christian assembly;^ but it 
seems to have come to pass, in the gradual separation of 
Christian from Jewish congregations, that the name ecdesia 
was given distinctively to the worshiping society of believ- 
ers in Christ. 

Such were the churches at the date of the New Testament 
Scriptures. It is not difficult to understand the process of 
their origin and organization if we recollect distinctly what 
Christianity was at the beginning, before it was developed 
into what is now called doctrine, and what change it wrought 
in the consciousness and relations of those who received it. 

' James ii., 2 : "If there come into your synagogue,'^ etc. 



30 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. I. 

1. The Gospel, as the apostles preached it, was essentially a 
story and a hope — the story the warrant of the hope. Even 
now we talk about " the story of the Gospel," though preach- 
ers, as well as theologians, ordinarily find it more natural to 
talk about " the doctrines of the Gospel." We still speak 
of the four books which record the life, death, and resurrec- 
tion of Jesus as " the four Gospels." But to the apostles 
and their hearers the story was all — the story about Jesus 
of Nazareth. All doctrine was involved in that story, all 
duty was related to it. All the inspiration which made the 
believer " a new creature " was in the story, and in the hope 
which it warranted. Those who received the story, and 
into whose consciousness its inspiration entered, were related 
to each other as brethren. The religious element in human 
nature is pre-eminently social, and the new religious con- 
sciousness which believers had in common made them mem- 
bers of a new society. At Philippi, for example, Lydia and 
the other converts were in a new relation to each other from 
the hour of their conversion.^ By virtue of their new faith 
and hope, they became at once, independently of any conven- 
tional arrangement, the church of Christ in Philippi. 

2. Wherever the Gospel found reception, the converts must 
needs have their meetings for prayer, for mutual encourage- 
ment and help, and for such instruction as the best informed 
and most gifted among them could impart, if no other teach- 
ing was at hand. A convenient time for such meetings — a 
season redolent of sacred memories — was the first day of the 
week, beginning w'ith the sunset of the Sabbath, and this 
they called "the Lord's day."^ 

3. The first converts, who were the earliest members of 
such a meeting, had made profession of their faith in Jesus 
the Christ, and of their joining themselves to the ncAv king- 
dom of God, by a simple ceremony of washing, significant 
of the divine cleansing which was their entrance into a new 

' Acts xvi., 12-15, 40. * Acts xx., 7; 1 Cor. xvi., 2 ; Rev. i., 10. 



A.D. 1-100.] WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 31 

and holy life. Of course, any who afterward came into their 
fellowship were in like manner baptized. 

4. As at Jerusalem, so in all other places, the believers, as- 
sembled for mutual help and the mutual expression of their 
fellowship in the Gospel, had a certain "breaking of bread" 
together in remembrance of him whom they gratefully ac- 
knowledged as Christ the Lord. Their eating and drinking 
as at their Lord's table, and their initiatory washing, seem to 
have been all that was distinctive in tlieir formal observ- 
ances, unless we add their habit of meeting on the first day 
of the week. 

5. The name which they, gave to their religion, as distin- 
guished from the story by which it was inspired — the name 
of that new life which they had begun to live — was "godli- 
ness," or the right worship [ev(Tr]j3eut] ; and the name by which 
they spoke of themselves as a community, or of each other, 
was "saints," or "holy brethren." Having such thoughts 
and aspirations, they were under a necessity of sympatliizing 
with each other in any trouble, and of helping each other in 
any distress. That necessity was not itisposed upon them 
merely by rule or stipulation — it was aii^instinct of their 
new life. V^ \ t^ l^^ , 

6. At first, such a society may h|"€e beeif'ivithoftt formal 
organization. The most capable, by a^^erta^law of human 
nature, would lead the rest. Each member, piampted^ by his 
new ideas and sympathies, would use, for the common cause 
and the edification of his brethren, whatever gifts he had, and 
of whatever kind.^ But soon organization, in a more defi- 
nite way, would become necessary. There must be a recog- 
nized distribution of duties: one must do this work, another 
must do that. Somebody must preside in their meetings, 
and take the lead in worship and conference or in more form- 
al teaching. Somebody (and naturally somebody else) must 
receive contributions and expend them. If we would know 

' Kom. xii. , 4-8. 



32 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. I. 

how the organization was completed by the appointment of 
officers to perform these various functions, we must forget 
for the moment all modern systems of ecclesiastical polity, 
and let the apostolic documents teach us. Paul and Barna- 
bas revisited carefully the places where they had, in the first 
visit, made disciples. They went, " confirming the souls of 
the disciples," or, in another phrase, " confirming the church- 
es ;" and one thing in that work of confirming or consolidat- 
ing the believers in the fellowship into which they had been 
introduced was the leading of them to a formal choice of of- 
ficers in each society as " the seven " were chosen at Jerusa- 
lem.^ It was to that work of "confirming the churches'' 
that Timothy and Titus were afterward designated, wiien 
they w^ere commissioned to set in order the things that had 
not been completed, and to constitute " elders in every 
city." When a missionary, the modern evangelist, in some 
unevangelized country, gathers his converts into churches, 
leads them in the choice of the officers necessary to the com- 
pleteness of their organization, trains them to habits of self- 
support and self-government, and at last leaves them to the 
protection of God's providence and the guiding influence of 
God's word and Spirit, the difierence between him and those 
whom he ordains in every city is surely intelligible. Such 
was the difference between those primitive evangelists, the 
apostles, with their fellow-laboi*ers, and the presbyter-bishops 
in every city. 

Such was the simplicity of organization in the primitive 
churches. There was no complex constitution, no studied 
distribution of powers, no sharp distinction of ranks. Each 
congregation — like a patriarchal tribe, like a Hebrew village, 
like a synagogue — had its " elders." ^ Some were to preside 
in the assembly, leading and feeding the flock; others to 
serve in the communion of the saints, almoners for the church 
to the needy, comforters to the afflicted. Bishops or dea- 

' Acts xiv., 21-23 ; xv., 3G-41. ^ Stanley, "Jewish Church," 181, 182. 



A.D, 1-100.1 WHAT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. 33 

-I 9 

cons, they were servants of the community, not lords over 
it. In a brotherhood where all were " kings and priests 
to God," no elder was king over his brethren, or stood as 
priest between them and the Father of their Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

[The reader who would examine more in detail the subject of the fore- 
going chapter may be referred to the following works accessible in the 
English language : 

Neander, "Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apos- 
tles." Books I. -III. 

SchafF, "History of the Apostolic Church." Books II. -IV. 

Mosheim, "Historical Commentaries." Centmy I., Sections 37—18. 

Milman, ' ' History of Christianity. " Book II. , Ch. iv. 

Jacob, "Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament." 

Whately, "Kingdom of Christ."] 

c 



34 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. II. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE PRIMITIVE TO THE PAPAL. 

When Christianity, by the conversion of Constantine 
(A.D. 312), became the dominant religion in the Roman Em- 
pire, the church polity then existing was in some respects 
widely diiFerent from that of the primitive churches. Less 
than three hundred years after the beginning at Jerusalem, 
the government of churches had become essentially episcopal, 
though the bishops every where were elected by the Chris- 
tian people. Often, if not always, the authority of the bishop, 
instead of being simply parochial, extended over many con- 
gregations, the mother church, in which the bishop had his 
throne, or sedes [see], being surrounded with dependent con- 
gregations, all under one government. The bishop had un- 
der him a body of presbyters, who were his council and help- 
ers, and to whom he assigned their duties. Not unfrequently 
the bishops of a district or province were assembled in synods 
or councils to deliberate on aifairs of general interest, such 
as disputed points of doctrine, and questions about uniformity 
in worship and discipline. There was a firmly established 
distinction between clergy and laity, the clergy consisting of 
three orders or gradations, bishops, presbyters, and deacons. 

It has been sometimes assumed that what was in the fourth 
century must have been from the beginning. The fact, so 
conspicuous in the survey of that age, that the then existing 
church polity was substantially what is now called episcopal, 
has been thought to prove that the churches never were or- 
ganized and governed in any other way ; especially as there 
are no traces of any revolutionary conflict by which one 
polity was substituted for another, and no exact line can be 
drawn to mark the bescinning of the distinction between 



A.D. 100-400.] FROM PEIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 35 

presbyters and bishops, or the transfer of power from self- 
governing Christian assemblies to a hierarchy. Constantino 
did not institnte the episcopal form of government over the 
churches — he found it already existing, with its roots in the 
past; and in adopting Christianity as the religion of the em- 
pire, he adopted that ecclesiastical polity. What, then, had 
become of the polity which we find in the New Testament? 
At what date was it superseded ? Who introduced another 
constitution in the place of it ? Such is the outline of an 
argument which often seems conclusive. 

The fallacy lies in the assumption that church government, 
once instituted, will perpetuate itself, and can be changed 
only by a revolutionary agitation. It is easy to assume that 
from what existed in the early part of the fourth century we 
may safely infer what existed in the early part of the third 
or of the second; and that from what existed when Chris- 
tianity, early in the second century, emerges as an organized 
force into secular history, we may infer with certainty what 
existed in that formative and rudimentary period of which 
we have no record but in the New Testament. We know 
that the church polity which Constantino found in full shape 
and action was modified under his influence, and that the 
history of the church through all the ages from Constantino 
to Luther is full of changes in the polity of what "svas called 
the Catholic Church. We know, too, that in the earlier pe- 
riod, from the days of Ignatius and Polycarp onward, the 
constitution of the Christian commonwealth throughout the 
Roman Empire, the powers and functions of its ofticers, and 
the relations of local churches to each other, had been grad- 
ually changed. Need we marvel then if, in the early years 
of the second century, we find a diflference between such 
bishops as Ignatius of Antioch or even Polycarp of Smyrna 
and those whom Paul exhorted at Miletus, or those to whom 
he addressed the epistle which he wrote for the church at 
Philippi, or those whom he described in his Pastoral Epistles? 

As the New Testament gives us no system of definite and 



36 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, II. 

formulated dogmas in theology, so it gives us no completed 
system of church government. Ecclesiastical polity grew, 
age after age, just as theology grew. What there was of or- 
ganization in the primitive churches was more like the or- 
ganization of a seed than like the organization of the tree in 
its maturity. The period between the day of Pentecost and 
the middle of the second century — or the narrow^er period 
between the date of the Pastoral Epistles and the beginning 
of that century — could not but be a period of rapid develop- 
ment in the Christian commonwealth. Nor did the growth 
of ecclesiastical polity terminate then. It went on, imper- 
ceptibly but steadily, to the age of C'Onstantine — as it went 
on afterward to the age of Luther — as it goes on now, even 
in communities most abhorrent of progress and most observ- 
ant of traditions. 

The circumstances of that early development determined, 
in many respects, its character and tendency. In that age 
the churches had no experience to guide them or to warn 
them. They knew nothing of what we know from the his- 
tory of eighteen centuries. Why should they be jealous for 
their liberty? How should they be expected to detect and 
resist the beginning of lordship over God's heritage ? We 
must remember, too, that in those times of inexperience the 
development of the Christian organization was a develop- 
ment under pressure. Christianity, often persecuted, always 
" an illicit religion," was making its way in the presence of 
powerful enemies. Its natural leaders, the " bishops and 
deacons," freely chosen in every church, were, of necessity, 
intrusted with large powers over the endangered flock, and, 
of course, power was accumulating in their hands. The 
churches were in cities ; for it Avas in cities that the new doc- 
trine and worship could obtain a foothold. Such churches, 
as they grew, were naturally distributed, rather than divided, 
into a plurality of assemblies governed by one venerable 
company of bishops or elders, and served by one corps of 
deacons. Equally natural was it for each mother church to 



A.D. 100-400.] FROM PRIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 37 

become still more extended by spreading itself out into the 
suburbs and surrounding villages ; all believers in the city 
and its suburbs, or in the country round about, being recog- 
nized as constituting one ecclesia with one administration. 

In the growth of such a community, as its affairs become 
more complicated, one of the elders or overseers must needs 
become the moderator or chairman of the board ; and to him 
the chief oversight must be intrusted. At first that presid- 
ing elder is only a leader, foremost among brethren who are 
equal in authority ; but by degrees he becomes a superior 
officer with distinctive powers. A tendency to monarchy 
begins to be developed in what was at first a simple republic. 
The principle of equality and fraternity begins to be super- 
seded by the spirit of authority and subordination. This 
may be noted as the first departure from the simplicity of 
the primitive polity. 

Primitive bishops — the elders whom the apostles ordained 
in every city — were not necessarily preachers in an official 
or professional way. They were rather a board of managers, 
not unlike to class-leaders in the system of Wesleyan Meth- 
odism. Some of them " labored in word and doctrine," and 
" aptness to teach " was regai'ded as an important qualifica- 
tion for their office. It was their duty to preside in the 
worshiping assembly; to watch for the prosperity of the 
church and for the welfare of individual souls, and, among 
other things, to call out those who could fitly speak a word of 
exhortation or of doctrine— as the rulers of the synagogue at 
Antioch, in Pisidia, called, out Paul and Barnabas. ^ Preach- 
ing was by apostles, evangelists, prophets, or gifted brethren 
[■n-vevfiariKoi], some of whom — if there were such in the church 
—would be among the elders. In the next generation, when 
the apostles and their fellow-laborers in the first preaching 
of the Gospel had passed away, the duty of feeding the peo- 
ple with knowledge, and of speaking to them the word of 

■ Acts xiii., 15. 



38 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. II. 

God, came with additional weight upon the rulers of the 
Christian synagogue. Then the elder who is to preside over 
his brethren must be a preacher with gifts of knowledge and 
of utterance ; and the elder who presides and preaches be- 
comes the bishop. So there comes to be a distinction of rank 
and of functions between the bishop and his presbyters. 
Once he and they were co-presbyters, taking heed to the flock 
" over which the Holy Ghost had made them" jointly " over- 
seers ;" but the silent progress of change has made them his 
subordinates. 

Such was the rudimentary beginning of episcopal power 
over the churches. At first it was simply a parish episcopacy. 
While the mother church in a city — the principal and cen- 
tral congregation — had its full staff of presbyters, the bishop's 
advisers and helpers, it naturally followed that the subordi- 
nate congregations which had grown up in the near vicinity 
were supplied with presbyters, or teachers and rulers, under 
the direction of the bishop, and responsible to him. As yet 
there was properly no diocese — only a large and growing- 
parish, with dependent and outlying districts. But by im- 
perceptible gradations the parochial bishop of the second 
century had begun to be, in the third century, a diocesan 
bishop, though of moderate pretensions. The ancient civili- 
zation, even more than the modern, made cities the seats of 
power; and it was most natural for the mother church of a 
city to become the mother church for all the region of which 
that city was the market town or the political centre. At 
an early period the churches of Greece, represented by their 
bishops, began to meet in occasional synods for consultation 
and agreement on questions of doctrine or of order; and 
gradually the theory was accepted of an oecumenical church 
under a common government, and of councils whose decrees, 
or " canons," enacted in the name of catholic unity, were to 
liave the force of law in all particular churches. When 
Christianity became, under Constantine, the religion of the 
emperor, that sagacious statesman found already developed 



A.D. 100-400.] FROM PRIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 39 

more than the ruduiients of the ecclesiastical government 
which he proceeded to establish. He divided the territory 
of the empire into ecclesiastical patriarchates, provinces, and 
dioceses, corresponding with the divisions and subordinations 
of civil jurisdiction ; and thus the system of diocesan epis- 
copacy, as it exists to-day in Roman Catholic Europe, in En- 
gland, in Russia, and in the old Christian communities of the 
Turkish Empire, was completed. 

Meanwhile another change, departing more widely from 
the simple Christianity of the New Testament, had been in 
progress. The primitive elder, whether bishop or deacon, 
was only an officer in a local society where all were brethren. 
In the Christian assembly, as in the Jewish synagogue, there 
were rulers to preside and direct ; there were " pro2)hets and 
teachers ;" there were servants of the congregation ; there 
was the obvious distinction between brethren appointed to 
certain duties and brethren not in office; and, doubtless, 
those brethren who, though neither bishops nor deacons, had 
special gifts for the sei'vice of the Gospel, were in some way 
recognized and distinguished ; but the distinction between 
clergy and laity, afterward so wide, had not then been made. 
As in the synagogue, so in the ecclesia, there was neither 
sacrifice nor altar. In the new kingdom of God on earth, all 
were " kings and priests unto God ;" and the High-priest was 
none other than Jesus the Christ, who, having offered him- 
self once for all, had passed beyond the veil, and was making 
intercession for all his saints. The Christianity of that age 
knew nothing of a clergy superior to the brotherhood by 
virtue of some mysterious power conferred in ordination, or 
of a laity dependent on priestly mediation for access to 
God. But certain errors adverse to spiritual Christianity 
have their origin in human nature, ever prone to superstition. 
In the third and fourth centuries, the rulers of the Christian 
synagogue — the bishops and deacons appointed to certain 
duties in the local church — became, by gradual change, a 
Christian priesthood. 



40 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. II, 

That change was inseparably connected with other changes 
adverse to the simply spiritual religion of the New Testa- 
ment, It was not Avithout significance that what had been 
only a teaching and guiding ministry in the churches began 
to be called by names and titles borrowed from the Jewish 
or the Gentile sacerdotal system. Superstition had already 
begun to misunderstand and pervert the symbolic observ- 
ances instituted by Christ, and to regard them as having a 
supernatural efficacy if rightly performed. The elder who 
not only labors in word and doctrine, and helps to guide the 
flock, but also communicates supernatural grace by his ma- 
nipulations, has become more than a ruler in the Christian 
synagogue — more than a minister of the Gospel. He is a 
priest, and is rightly designated by sacerdotal titles. Being 
a priest, he must magnify his priestly office. Baptism, in- 
stead of being only a symbolical washing, significant of the 
new life into which the believer in Christ is born, becomes 
itself a regenerative act, deriving its efficacy from the priest 
who administers it. The jDrimitive elder having grown into 
a priest, " it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also 
to offer." 1 Thus the primitive eating and drinking in affec- 
tionate remembrance of Christ becomes a mysterious trans- 
action, invalid without a ministering priest; and at last, 
when superstition has been formulated into dogma, the table 
of the Lord's Supper is displaced by the altar, the bread has 
become "the host" [hostia, victim], the sign is confounded 
with the thing signified, the simple memorials are transub- 
stantiated into the actual body and blood and divinity of 
the Incarnate Son of God, and the officiating priest by a few 
muttered words of Latin creates the world's Creator, 

In the earliest centuries, after the fall of Jerusalem, the 
church of Antioch, where "the disciples were first called 
Christians," and whence Paul and Barnabas with their asso- 
ciates were sent forth on their missionary journeys ; the 

' Heb. viii., 3, 



A.D. 100-400.] FROJr PRIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 41 

churches of Ephesus and Smyrna, where there had long- 
been a marvelous confluence of ideas and superstitions, as 
well as of commerce from the East and from the West; and 
the church of Alexandria, where the new religion began to 
claim for its service the world's philosophy and learning, 
were more important, more honored, and more authoritative 
than the church of the imperial city. Beginning at Jerusa- 
lem, Christianity was in those ages more of a power on the 
southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean than in 
any European country, with the exception, perhaps, of Mace- 
donia and Achaia. Even in Rome its language, as at Anti- 
och and Alexandria, was Greek. But when Christianity had 
organized itself more widely through the empire, it began to 
be felt that the church in the greatest of all cities — the centre 
of the world's civilization, and the seat of almost universal 
empire — was in some sense the most important of all churches. 
Gradually, what had been a mere feeling, was becoming a 
claim on the one hand and a concession on the other, and 
something like a primacy among churches was recognized 
as a prerogative of the church in the imperial city. When 
the seat of emj^ire was transferred to the New Rome on the 
Bosphorus by the Christian emperor Constantino, the con- 
sequent rivalry between the church of Rome and the church 
of Constantinople, and between their bishops, for the pri- 
macy, was the beginning of a division which ultimately sepa- 
rated the Greek Church from the Latin, the Christianity of 
the East from that of the West. The first great attempt to 
convert the invisible and spiritual unity of Christ's Universal 
Church — such unity as may co-exist with freedom and di- 
versity — into the organic unity of a body politic, resulted in 
the first great schism. 

Rome having ceased to be the chief city of the world, the 
claim of the Roman bishops to precedence must rest upon 
another foundation. Was there not a primacy among the 
apostles? Did not Christ give to Peter the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven ? Was it not to Peter that he said, 



42 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. II. 

"Feed my sheep?" How could Peter govern the Universal 
Church as Christ's vicar, without making Rome the seat of 
liis apostolic empire ? Where else could he so fitly die and 
leave his authority to his successors? So came the pious 
fraud which made Rome the aj^ostolic see, and its bishop the 
vicar of Christ. This was a deep and sure foundation, not 
to be shaken by so trifling an event as the removal of the 
imperial court from the Tiber to the Bosphorus. Resting 
on such a foundation, the claim of primacy among bishops 
became at last a claim of supremacy over all Christians. 
The continued absence of the imperial court, the increasing- 
imbecility of the empire in the West, the irruption of bar- 
barians even into Italy, and the gradual displacement of pa- 
ganism by a modified Christianity, combined to invest the 
bishop of Rome with ever-growing authority. That author- 
ity became, in the absence of an eflicient secular govern- 
ment, a barrier against anarchy. The bishop — " the holy fa- 
ther" — was the father of the people, and for his sake the 
Greek word papa, or jJope — a familiar title applied to all 
priests in the Greek Church — was transferred into the Latin 
language. In pagan Rome the priests were pontiffs, and 
from the days of Numa Pompilius, there was always a Ponti- 
fex Maximns, or supreme pontiff:". When the Emperor Au- 
gustus was completing the subversion of the republic, and 
gathering into his own hands all the elements of power, he 
was the Pontifex Maximus, and thenceforth that was an im- 
perial title ; for the emperor must needs be the highest func- 
tionary of the national religion. But when the emperors 
were no longer pagan, they abdicated that old pagan priest- 
hood. Why then should not the chief priest of the new re- 
ligion snatch from the ruin of the old, and claim as his in- 
heritance, the title and the powers of Pontifex Maximus? 

In the early centuries, the law of God revealed in the 
Scriptures was the rule of life for Christians, while the civil 
government, being unchristian, had another standard. There 
was a higher law for Christians, and a lower law for those 



A.D. 100-400.] FKOM PRIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 4S 

wlio adhered to the old religion. A striking instance of this 
was the difterence between Christians and unbelieveis in the 
law of marriage and in regard to offenses against chastity. 
While the Roman law was not quite regardless of conjugal 
rights and domestic sanctities, it permitted divorce almost 
at the discretion of either party, and it had no censure for 
any licentiousness save that which robbed a husband of his 
wife not yet divorced. But among Christians, marriage was 
a religious contract, in which the parties were united under 
the benediction of the church, and which was indissoluble 
without a forfeiture of character and standing by at least 
one of the parties. A divorce might be lawful before Caesar 
and unlawful before God. The church, therefore, applying 
in its discipline the law of Christ, must take cognizance 
of every divorce within its jurisdiction, and at its tribunal 
the invalidity of a marriage or the rightfulness of a divorce 
might be tried and decided. In like manner other offenses, 
whether against morals or against religion, if committed 
by persons claiming the Christian name, came under the 
cognizance of the church. Moreover, the early Christians 
had been taught by the apostles not to appear against 
each other as litigants before heathen magistrates, but rath- 
er to settle their differences among themselves by friendly 
arbitration. Thus in each church, Avherever Christianity 
grew into an organized institution, there must needs be 
some judicial power both for the trial and censure of 
public offenses and for the adjustment of private contro- 
versies among the faithful. When the government of those 
early churches had become episcopal, the judicial power 
rested in the bishop and his subordinates. As the nom- 
inally Christian population, in one city and another, be- 
came more numerous, age after age, the judicial and admin- 
istrative functions of the clergy, presided over by the bish- 
ops, became continually more extensive and more arduous. 
Less scrupulous than the apostles, the bishops did not refuse 
to take upon themselves, in addition to the administration 



44 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. II, 

of spiritual discipline and the trial of causes between Chris- 
tian litigants, various duties pertaining to what we have 
learned to call the secularities of the church. Dependent 
widows, friendless orphans, and all arrangements in the name 
of the church to relieve the poor, were under their care. 
Wills were referred to the bishop for approval, and the di- 
vision of inheritances fell under his superintendence. When 
the hierarchical principle had been developed, and with it 
the correlate principle of an oecumenical church, governed as 
one body by its hierarchy ; and when councils, provincial 
and oecumenical, had begun to legislate for the churches, and 
their decrees or canons had begun to be recognized as law, 
the idea of appeals from one tribunal to another, and finally 
to the church at Rome, as the tribunal of ultimate resort, 
was an easy consequence. Constantino and his successors 
in the empire, having removed from Christianity the stigma 
of an illicit religion, proceeded to recognize and legalize the 
power of the bishops over the communities under their care. 
The distinction, now so familiar, between church govern- 
ment and civil government, had never been defined or dis- 
cussed, and it was therefore natural for the ministers of a re- 
ligion recognized and protected by the state to become in 
some sort and to some extent functionaries of the imperial 
power. The decisions of bishops, in certain cases, were to 
be enforced without question or appeal by civil officers. 
Certain exemptions and immunities Avere gained for the 
clergy, so that for many offenses, and at last for all offenses, 
they were responsible only to the ecclesiastical authority, 
and must be divested of their sacred character by the church 
before the civil power could touch them. Of all this, noth- 
ing was lost — indeed, the progress of ecclesiastical usurpa- 
tion was greatly accelerated — when, at the downfall of the 
empire in the West, its barbarian conquerors were them- 
selves conquered by the church. 

In the new world which slowly emerged, as from a deluge, 
after the overthrow of the old civilization, and which became 



A.D. GOO-1500.] FEOM PKIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 45 

the world of the Middle Ages, the church, converting the 
barbarians and humanizing their ferocity, was among the 
foremost powers. The Catholic Church, with its one ubiqui- 
tous priesthood, with its superstitions and imposing ritual, 
with its ever-growing splendor and grandeur, with its gov- 
ernment centralized under the supreme Pontiff at the his- 
toric seat of universal empire, and with what still remained 
to it of intellectual culture and aspiration, and of the Chris- 
tian spirit and doctrine, became the bond of union among 
nations of diverse races and dissonant languages. Its canon 
law was a distinct body of jurisprudence, supposed to be au- 
thoritative over all men, touching all human relations, and 
having force as law wherever the primacy of Rome was ac- 
knowledged — whether on the Tiber or on the Thames, whether 
in France or in Germany. Its tribunals were every where 
co-ordinate with the courts of secular justice, and every 
where the magistrate was bound to resj^ect and obey their 
decisions. 

But while the church was thus encroaching on the state, 
it came to pass that the state in its turn transcended its 
legitimate powers and invaded the province of the church. 
At every stage in the progress of the hierarchy and of the 
su[3erstitions which made it powerful, there was a correspond- 
ing increase of the wealth devoted to religious uses and con- 
trolled by ecclesiastical functionaries. The election of bish- 
ops, after being transferred from the people to the clergy of 
the cathedral churches, had been virtually given to the 
pope, whose approval was considered necessary to the valid- 
ity of an election. By similar methods the control of ap- 
pointments to lucrative or honorable stations in the church, 
throughout all the countries subject to papal authority, was 
gradually centralized in the court of Rome. The power of 
the pope in these respects, together with the taxes which he 
levied under various names and pretenses, became burden- 
some. In one country and another, the drain on the national 
wealth gave rise to loud and frequent complaint. It was a 



46 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. II. 

serious question whether the ever-growing wealth of the ec- 
clesiastical power should bear its part, with the wealth of 
laymen and of secular corporations, in the tribute which 
wealth pays to government for protection. When the ec- 
clesiastical power had become so great and so formidable, 
there could not but be resistance unless the state were con- 
tent to be merged in a spiritual despotism. Some limit 
must be set to the power that was centred at Rome, or 
there would soon be no other power. If pvincely archbish- 
ops, with princely dignity and power, and bishops with the 
wealth and state of barons, were appointed by the pojoe, and 
were responsible only to him for the exercise of their most 
formidable powers, the king — the secular and civil govern- 
ment, under whatever name — must have a voice in the ap- 
pointment ; and the ecclesiastical lord, no less than the lay 
lord, must be invested with the lands and temporal posses- 
sions of his office by the sovereign to whom he owed alle- 
giance. The conflict about ecclesiastical investitures w^hich 
runs through the history of the Middle Ages was essentially 
a conflict between the church and the state about the ap- 
pointment of church officers. No such conflict could have 
arisen had the churches retained their original simplicity of 
constitution. But when the church had become a hierarchy 
with immense possessions, and that hierarchy had become 
complicated with all the machinery of government in the 
state, the long conflict between the popes, on the one hand, 
and emperors and kings on the other hand, was an inevitable 
consequence. 

The celibacy of the clergy was not a papal invention. In 
the early churches — as early, perhaps, as the latter part of the 
second century — there was an ascetic sentiment which forgot 
that "marriage is honorable in all," and ascribed superior 
sanctity to a life of voluntary celibacy. Before the schism 
between the Greek Church and the Latin, before the excision 
of the Oriental churches, that sentiment had acquired almost 
the force of law. Yet to this day, in the. Greek Church, in 



A.D. 000-1500.] PEOII PRIMITIVE TO PAPAL. 47 

the Armenian Church, and in the Nestorian, celibacy is re- 
quired only of bishops, who are therefore selected generally, 
not from among the parochial clergy, but from among the 
monks in convents. But in the Latin Church of the Middle 
Ages, an unmarried life became at last, after many conflicts, 
the indispensable rule for all orders of the hierarchy. The 
priests of that great organization which, in the name of 
Christ, aspired to universal dominion, were excluded from 
the most important and sacred of human relations, and were 
to be an isolated class incapable of the sympathies, so tender 
and so powerful, which live in the atmosphere of home and 
of household love and duty. 

Yet the parochial clergy, dwelling in their own parishes, 
watching over their own flocks, serving their neighbors in 
the ministrations of religion, and responsible each to his own 
bishop, were thought to be not sufficiently cut ofi" from hu- 
man relations and sympathies. Though doomed to ignorance 
of parental and conjugal aflections, though exempt from all 
ordinary duties in society and from responsibility to civil 
government, they were, after all, citizens in some sort, and 
capable of patriotic sympathies. As being in the world, 
they were called the secular clergy. The monastic orders, 
those great fraternities organized under vows of obedience 
as well as of celibacy, were the regular clergy — exempted 
from the jurisdiction of the bishops, withdrawn from the 
world, generally secluded in monasteries, governed by their 
own oflicers like a military organization — the standing army 
of the great High-Priest at Rome. 

Into those bodies many of the best men, in those ages of 
ignorance and violence, were attracted, by whose withdrawal 
from their natural relations to society, the world, which might 
have been the better for their example and their direct be- 
neficence, was really made worse. Doubtless the monasteries 
and the monastic orders were instituted, originally, with the 
best intentions. Doubtless they served some good purpose 
under that divine Providence which makes all thino-s in 



48 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. II. 

some way subservient to itself. It may be that, without 
them, learning, in those ages of barbarism, would have per- 
ished. It may be that, without them, Christianity, finding 
uo place of refuge, would have degenerated into a religion 
of ferocity, or into a superstition as besotted as that which 
exists in Abyssinia. But we know that human nature in 
those ages was just what human nature is to-day. We know 
that neither human passions nor human infirmities can be 
laid down at the gate of a monastery, and that the commu- 
nity within, which receives the neophyte into its bosom and 
subjects him to its ascetic rules, is only a community of men 
in a most unnatural and unmanly condition. We know, too, 
that a sentimental Christianity, shirking all natural duties, 
retreating from conflict with the world's temptations, and 
shutting itself up in a cell for communion with God, is 
Christianity misguided, morbid, and deformed, and that it 
can not recover its vigor or its divine beauty but by going 
forth to walk and to work in the sunshine. Xor can we for- 
get that as the idea of monastic life had its origin partly in 
the exaggeration, but still more in the perversion of Christian 
sentiments, so the monastic orders, instead of having any 
tendency or fitness to restore the true ideal of the Christian 
life, were the foremost supporters of superstition and the 
most efiicient instruments of spiritual despotism. 



A.D. 1517-55.] CHUKCH POLITY OF THE KEFORMATION. 49 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT THE REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTUEY 
DID FOR CHURCH POLITY. 

The great Reforraation in the sixteenth century was an 
attempt to recover the primitive Gospel. Its success, so far 
as it was successful, resulted from a concurrence of various 
forces adverse to that huge system, compacted of supersti- 
tion, scholastic theology, and spiritual despotism, the growth 
of fourteen hundred years, which had usurped the name and 
place of Christianity. The revival of learning, the invention 
of printing, and the general movement toward a new stage 
of civilization, were among the influences which contributed 
to the result. What was, at first, the experience of individ- 
ual souls struggling with the great question, "How shall 
man be just with God," driven back from tradition to the 
Scriptures, and finding rest in Christ the one mediator be- 
tween God and men, became, at that juncture, a new an- 
nouncement of the primitive Gospel. As in the first cent- 
ury, so in the sixteenth, the Gospel, " to wit, that God is in 
Christ reconciling the world to himself," was the power that 
took hold of human souls to bring them out of darkness into 
light, and out of bondage into the liberty of the sons of God. 
Agitation ensued, opposition, conflict, papal excommunica- 
tion, and at last a permanent revolt of Protestant nations 
against the power enthroned at Rome.^ 

In what ecclesiastical forms did Protestantism organize it- 
self? When we ask this question, we meet the fact that 
every where a political element was combined with the sim- 
ply religious element in effecting the Reformation. 

' See " History of the Reformation," by Prof George P. Fisher. 

D 



50 GENESIS OF THE NEAV ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. III. 

The Roman Catholic religion, or, more properly, the churcli 
under the hierarchy centralized at Rome, was every where a 
political institution. For ages the pope and the bishops un- 
der him were often, not to say habitually, in conflict with 
civil governments; for the church, professing to wield the 
power of Him to whom is given all power on earth and in 
heaven, was every where — whether in Spain or in England, 
in Sicily or in Sweden — one corporation, claiming its exemp- 
tions and its privileges, not under the law of the land, but 
under a superior law of which it was itself the sole expos- 
itor. The ecclesiastical theory of those ages was not "a 
free church in a free state," but one oecumenical church dom- 
inant over subject states, and executing its decrees by the 
ministry of the secular power. If there were to be a church 
reformation, the movement could not but be political as well 
as religious. In the relations then existing between church 
and state, if the institution known as the church were to be 
reformed in its doctrines, worship, and polity, that reforma- 
tion must take place either under the protection of the civil 
power, and in some sort of co-operation with it, or in the form 
of a political revolution. 

Earlier attempts at reformation failed and were suppress- 
ed because they came to be regarded by the civil power, 
sooner or later, as dangerous and revolutionary. But when 
Luther in Northern Germany, and Zwingli in German Swit- 
zerland, began simultaneously to recall men's minds from su- 
perstitious reliance on priestly intercessions and manipula- 
tions, and to exhibit the freeness of God's grace and the sim- 
plicity of the way to be saved, the political condition of Eu- 
rope was such that they found protection and encourage- 
ment, and in some sense help, from secular powers. Under 
the Providence that rules the world, the success of the 
Reformation, wherever it was permanently successful, was 
brought about by that combination of political with relig- 
ious forces. Luther would have been crushed but for the 
constant fi-icndship of Frederick the Wise. Zwingli was sus- 



A.D. 1517-55.] CHURCH POLITY OF THE EEFORMATION. 51 

tiiined by the free spirit of Switzerland. The little republic 
of Geneva made itself illustrious by receiving Calvin as its 
religious leader. 

It was an inevitable consequence of this combination that 
every where the political element of the Reformation pre- 
dominated in determining the form of ecclesiastical institu- 
tions and arrangements. Already, in each state or kingdom, 
the church was inseparr^bly complicated with the state. No 
reformation was possible but by asserting and maintaining 
liberty for the state or kingdom against the tyranny of Rome 
or of the ecclesiastico-political power. Acquiescence, on the 
part of the Reformers, in such arrangements for public wor- 
ship and for the religious instruction of the peojile as could 
be obtained by consultation and agreement with the polit- 
ical power that protected them, was inevitable in the cir- 
cumstances of the conflict. What they were contending for 
was the primitive Gospel rather than the primitive church 
polity. The ecclesiastical polity, therefore — especially in 
relation to the forms of public worship, the selection and 
designation of ministers, and the provision for their support 
— was determined, in each reformed state or kingdom, not so 
much by a reference to the primitive model as by considera- 
tions of temporary and local convenience. 

It was in this way that national churches, independent of 
each other as well as of Rome, came into being. No doubt 
there had been long before some rudimentary notion of a 
national church ; but in the Reformation, as wrought out by 
the co-operation of religious and political forces, that idea 
was developed, and became the basis of ecclesiastical organ- 
ization. It was assumed, as a first principle, that the people 
of a Christian state or kingdom, being all baptized, were all 
Christians and members of Christ's church in that state or 
kingdom. It was also assumed that the Christian people 
were represented in their government, and that whatever 
rights and powers in matters ecclesiastical had originally be- 
longed to the Christian laity, but had been usurped by the 



52 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. III. 

pope or the clergy, were in the people as politically organ- 
ized, or (wherever the Reformation came by a political revo- 
lution) in the Protestant as distinguished from the Roman- 
ist people. Arrangements were therefore made for the re- 
forming of ecclesiastical institutions — such as public wor- 
ship, the choice and induction of ministers, the administra- 
tion of sacraments, and the infliction of censures — in con- 
formity with the theory which it will be convenient to des- 
ignate as NationalisTin. The underlying idea was that the 
baptized people of an independent state, being a distinct 
church, were as independent of Rome as Rome was of them, 
while they were also a constituent part of the true church 
catholic. Before the Reformation there was no ecclesias- 
tical independence any where in Western Christendom. Na- 
tional churches, if any body thought of such a thing, were 
only portions of one organized and governed church — the 
Roman Catholic. 

Where kings or sovereign princes led the Reformation, 
and had the shaping of its institutions, the reconstructed 
church government was, essentially if not in name, episcopal. 
In proportion as the political element concurring with the 
religious reformers was popular, the new church government 
was essentially presbyterian, or classical and synodical, tend- 
ing toward the independence and self-government of each 
particular congregation, but guarding the official authority 
as well as the parity of the clergy. At Geneva, Calvin, not 
to be out-voted by fellow-presbyters unfriendly to the Ref- 
ormation, established a consistory in which representatives 
of the laity, annually chosen, were consessors with the clergy. 
That consistory at Geneva became a model of government 
for the churches of the Reformation in France, in the Neth- 
erlands, in various German cities and principalities, and in 
Scotland ; and the laymen whose voices and votes in the 
consistory were to check the power of the ministers were 
afterward called " lay-elders," 

It would be folly to suppose that the Reformers, as dis- 



A.D. 1517-55,] CHUECH POLITY OF THE EEFORMATION. 53 

tinguished from the secular powers that protected or be- 
friended them, regarded themselves as having achieved their 
own ideal of church organization. On the contrary, they 
seem to have regarded the various ecclesiastical systems re- 
sulting from the Reformation as obviously imperfect, and to 
have accepted them as the best they could obtain in the cir- 
cumstances. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, and Latimer 
wanted something better, and hoped that in another age the 
work begun by them would be completed. The religious 
tendency, in the reconstruction of ecclesiastical institutions, 
was in the direction of a theory which was nowhere realized.^ 

Nine years after the beginning of the Reformation in Ger- 
many (1526), there was prepared for the churches of the great 
principality of Hesse, or Hessia, a scheme of ecclesiastical or- 
der which was almost a purely Congregational platform, but 
which never went into operation there. Francis Lambert, 
of Avignon, was the author of it. A fugitive from France, 
he had found in Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, a protector 
and a patron. Li an informal synod convened by Philip to 
settle the Reformation in his principality, the exiled French- 
man had the opportunity of presenting certain theses on 
church government which he had published not long before 
under the title of " Paradoxes ;" and a plan of reformation 
was adopted by the synod in conformity with the views 
which he had gained from a careful and independent study 
of the Scriptures. 

The method which Lambert proposed, and which the in- 
formal synod seems to have heartily approved, provides, first, 
for the organization of local churches. It " contemplates the 
formation of a pure congregation of true believers, in which 
the right of ecclesiastical self-government should be exer- 
cised immediately by the congregation, not mediately through 
representatives and delegates." Reasons for the self-govern- 
ment of parochial churches were adduced from the Script- 



' Gieseler, " Eccl. Hist." (translated by Prof. H. B. Smith), iv., 520-532. 



54 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. III. 

ures. "The law of Christ, in Matt, xviii., requires it to be 
' told to the church ' when a brother Avill not hear admoni- 
tion ; but the church of God is nothing but the assembly of 
believers. The believers must therefore be assembled from 
time to time, otherwise it would not be possible for the con- 
tumacy of an oflending brother to be reported to them. 
Furthermore, according to the word of Paul (1 Cor. v.), the 
believers must be gathered together for the public censure 
and excommunication of a scandalous person. There are 
other purposes, also, for which the believers must assemble 
— to i^ass judgment on the sentiments of their pastors; to 
elect, and, if necessary, to depose bishops and deacons (that 
is, parish ministers and their assistants), and officers for the 
care of the poor,^ and to decide on any other matter that 
concerns the whole Church. 

" Accordingly," said the author of the plan, " we ordain 
that in every parish, after the Word of God has been 
preached for a sufficient length of time, a meeting of believ- 
ers shall be held, in which all men who are on Christ's side 
and are reckoned with the saints shall come together, in. or- 
der that they may, in conjunction with the bishop " — that 
is, the bishop of that parish — " settle all the affairs of the 
church according to the word of God. Believing women 
may attend the meeting, but without the right of voting. 

" But inasmuch as opposers of the faith ought not to be 
admitted to the assembly of the faithful, let a separation be- 
tween true and false brethren be undertaken in the follow- 
ing way : After the word of God has been preached for a 
time, let the minister invite all believers to a meeting on the 
next Sunday, at which, however, only those are expected to 
be present who are ■willing to submit themselves to the 
word of God, and in particular to the rule that whosoever 

' Another account of this platform describes it as providing for "two kinds 
of church officers " — the pastors (episcopi) and their helpers (diaconi, or adjti- 
tores episcoporuni), on the one hand, and the almoners (diaconi ecclesiarum) 
on the other hand. 



A.D. 151 7-55. J CHURCH POLITY OF THE REFORMATION. 55 

gives offense by evil-doing shall be put out of the church. 
After this has been repeatedly announced, and after the 
people have been individually exhorted to repentance and 
amendment of life, shall the meeting take place. Those who 
are not willing to devote themselves to a life of Christian 
piety shall Avithdraw, and shall be considered not as breth- 
ren, but as heathen men and ' those that are without.' Let 
prayer, however, be made for these as well as for the brethren. 

" The power of excommunication and absolution by no 
means rests with the bishop alone, but only with him in 
conjunction with the church. But those who wish to be 
numbered with the saints, and to put themselves under the 
Christian discipline, are to be enrolled in a register — not 
shrinking from this even when they are very few^ in num- 
ber; let them be assured of this, that through the operation 
of God's word their number shall speedily increase, even 
though, at the outset, it be no more than twenty or thirty. 

" In the congregations of brethren or saints that may be 
organized as the result of these preparatory steps, all church 
business is to be transacted — choice of ministers, excommu- 
nication, restoration ; the bishop, to whom it belongs to pre- 
side in the meeting, seeing to it that, in accordance with the 
word of God, every one shall have a patient hearing." 

Such was the plan which Francis Lambert, in the early 
years of the Reformation, had deduced from the precedents 
and principles of the New Testament. The church, as or- 
ganized and governed, was to be a local or parochial institu- 
tion, complete in every parish. It was to be constituted, not 
by including all baptized inhabitants, but by a separation 
of its members from such as were not willing to submit them- 
selves to the word of God, and by mutual agreement. The 
church thus constituted was to be self-governed, having 
power over its members to admonish the erring, to excom- 
municate the stubborn offender, to restore the penitent. It 
was to have power over its officers, both bishops and deacons 
— the power to elect, to judge, and, if necessary, to depose. 



56 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. III. 

The bishop — each church having a bishop or bishops of its 
own — was to preside in the church-meeting, but was to have 
no power of exclusion from communion without the votes of 
the brethren. In every jjarish the brotherhood of believers 
was to be, simply and purely, a spiritual democracy under 
Christ. 

Another part of the platform made provision for a yearly 
synod of the churches, which was to be " composed of the 
assembled pastors and of delegates chosen immediately be- 
fore in the church-meetings." The functions and powers of 
the synod were defined in a remarkable accordance with the 
powers and functions of councils in the polity of the New 
England churches, the most important diiference being that 
the synod was to meet annually at a fixed time and place, 
instead of being convened like a New England council on a 
definite occasion and at a special call. In the annual meet- 
ing there was to be an examination of the doings of congre- 
gations in the choice and removal of pastors, an inspection 
and superintendence of the three visitors annually appointed, 
and finally the decision of questions and difticulties laid be- 
fore them by the churches. But it was declared in an in- 
tensely Congregational spirit, " that the word of God out- 
weighs a majority ;" ^ and that the decisions of the synod 
were to be set forth solely on the authority of substantial 
proofs from Scripture for the edification of all the churches, 
and were to be announced not as decrees or statutes, but 
only as "the answer of the Hessian Synod." 

Yet — and this was the greatest defect — the church was not 
to be completely separated from the state, but was still to 
be in some sort under the superintendence of the secular 
government. The business occui-ring between one synod 
and the next was to be in the charge, partly, of a select 
synodal committee of thirteen, partly of three visitors, to be 

^ ^^ Major enim est Dei serno omni hominum multitudine; et melius est 
adherere uni habenti verbum Domini, quam multis proprium judicium se- 

(luentibus." 



A.D. 1517-55.] CHURCH POLITY OF THE BEFORMATION. 57 

named for the first year by the landgrave and afterward by 
the synod, and partly of the church in the synodal city of 
Marburg. The same synodal committee was to superintend 
and manage the business of the synod when in session. In 
the selection of this committee, the prince, with the nobility, 
if present in the assembly, was to have the right of voting ; 
and in its sessions the prince, with such persons as he should 
introduce, and the nobility favorable to the Gospel, might be 
present. 

This Hessian platform almost extinguishes the' idea of 
clerical power — an idea essential to all the national churches 
produced by the Reformation, to the Presbyterian no less 
than to the Episcopal. A Presbyterian system of church 
government may change the priest into a minister of the 
word of God, and may deny that there is any cleansing efii- 
cacy or sacrificial value in his manipulation of the sacra- 
ments ; but if it make all preachers, by virtue of their or- 
dination, and independently of their being called to ofiice in 
a local church, rulers by divine right in the church at large, 
it simply changes the ruling priesthood into a ruling preach- 
erhood. But there was as little of ruling preacherhood as 
of ruling priesthood in Francis Lambert's system. The plat- 
form which he deduced from the Scriptures recognizes no 
bishop at large, nor any bishop other than the simple pastor 
of a parish church. It knows nothing about what is called 
the "indelibility of ordination," but affirms that "each pas- 
tor and pastor's assistant is appointed for such time only as 
he shall preach God's word purely and simply, and shall 
walk worthily," a position which assumes and explains the 
duty of the assembled believers " to pass judgment on the sen- 
timents of their pastors." It excludes the idea that only mem- 
bers of a clerical order can be chosen to the pastoral ofiice ; 
and, on the contrary, it maintains that " citizens and working- 
men, whatever their business may be, if only they are devout, 
blameless, and instructed, are eligible to the pastorate." It 
even maintains that men may be preachers without being in 



58 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. III. 

any sense church officers. Where it prevails, there shall be 
no clerical body, not even a body of pastors, with an exclu- 
sive right to speak in the congregation ; for it holds that 
"men without office in the church, being devout and strong 
in the Scriptures, are not to be forbidden to preach, inasmuch 
as there is an inward call from God." 

Had this scheme been proposed to Luther as an ideal theo- 
ry of church polity, or as a plan which might be adopted at 
a later stage of the Reformation, doubtless he would have 
most heartily approved it ; for the ideal which it portrayed 
was substantially his own. But when the question of at- 
tempting such a polity in the churches of Hesse was submit- 
ted to him by Philip, early in the following year, he could 
not believe that the time had come for building the house of 
God according to the pattern given in the Scriptures. He 
advised the prince not to promulgate the plan immediately, 
but first to appoint capable men over the parish schools and 
churches ; and when a number of these should have come 
practically and cordially into agreement, and others should 
be ready to follow them, to introduce the plan by a public 
ordinance. Thus a certain usage, being first settled, might 
be elevated into law. Evidently the great Reformer thought 
that the scheme was a devout imagination not to be realized 
in that age when so much depended on princely patronage ; 
and that Lambert was only an amiable dreamer. 

Luther's advice prevailed, and Lambert's platform of 
church discipline was set aside to wait for better times. 
Melanchthon, as well as Luther, thought that the age was not 
ripe for the emancipation of the churches and the coming in 
of a simply evangelical church polity. Accordingly, the or- 
dering of ecclesiastical affairs remained in the hands of the 
reforming landgrave; and his "instructions" to the ecclesi- 
astical visitors, issued after much deliberation, made no men- 
tion of local self-governed churches with their several bishops 
and their synods, but only of parish priests and superintend- 
ents. Two years later Lambert died, but not till he had re- 



A.D. 1530-39.] CHURCH POLITY OF THE REFORMATION. 59 

newed his testimony with unfailing aspiration. "When shall 
we have the joy of seeing our churches ordered strictly ac- 
cording to the law of Christ? Where is the power of ex- 
communication, that most essential thing to any church, 
which so many, in opposition to the plain testimony of the 
Scriptures, are throwing away?" 

Another year, and instead of provisional officers for the su- 
perintendence of the clergy and the parishes, superintendents 
lor life were appointed. Then followed a second assembly 
at Honiberg, by whose advice the duty of admonishing and 
of excommunicating unworthy parishioners was laid upon 
pastors only. At last, after thirteen years of such reforma- 
tion by the secular power with the advice of reforming theo- 
logians, the lay-eldership was introduced into the Hessian 
churches ; and the share of each local church (or rather of 
each parish) in its own government was that it might choose 
half of the lay-elders in its consistory, the other half being 
chosen by the magistrate to represent and maintain the de- 
pendence of the church on the civil government. 

In this last arrangement, " the ideal plan of Lambert van- 
ished away, leaving behind it no enduring fruit." ^ 

^ Congregational Quarterly, July, 1864, p. 276-280; Lechler, "Geschichte 
der Presbyterial- und Synodal -verfassung seit der Reformation" (Leyden, 
1834), 14-21; "Leben und ansgevvahlte Schriften der Vater und Begriin- 
der der reformirten Kirche (Elberfeld, 18G1), ix., 41-47. These writers re- 
fer to RiCHTER, " Sammlung Evangelischer Kirchenordnungen,"i., 58 sq., 
which contains the original document: "Reformatio Ecclesiariim Hassise 
juxta certissimam sermonum Dei regulnm ordinata in venerabili sviiodo," etc. 



60 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. IV. 



CHAPTER ly. 

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION AND THE PURITANS. 

In England, the twofold character of the Reformation was 
more conspicuous than in any other country. Elsewhere, as 
we have seen, that great revolution was effected, under the 
providence of God, by a concurrence of political with relig- 
ious forces. Princes and statesmen, or the leaders of petty 
republics, on the one hand, and reforming preachers and writ- 
ers on the other hand, were fellow-workers. But in England, 
more than any where else, the Reformation resembled some 
great river formed by the confluence of two streams which, 
like the Missouri and the Mississippi, refuse to mingle though 
flowing in one channel. On one side, it was a religious 
movement among the people, an inquiry after truth and sal- 
vation, a revolt of earnest and devout souls against the su- 
perstition, the false doctrine, and the despotic priesthood 
that hindered their access to God. On the other side, it was 
a politico-ecclesiastical revolution, an attempt of king and 
Parliament to drive out of the kingdom the insolent intru- 
sions and vexatious exactions of the court of Rome, a break- 
ing of what had long been felt as a galling yoke on the neck 
of a proud people. 

Considered as a religious movement, the Reformation in 
England began with Wycliffe, more than a hundred and 
fifty years before Luther. Fitly has the stout-hearted En- 
glishman been called "the morning star" of the day which 
had its sunrise in the sixteenth century. Though protected 
for a while by some of the most powerful of the nobles, and 
encouraged by the sympathy of Parliament in his Luther-like 
attacks on the mendicant orders and the pope, he was not 
sustained by any adequate political power in his efforts to 



A.D. 1370-1534.] THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. 61 

evangelize the people. His disciples, under the name of Lol- 
lards — a reproachful designation imported from the Continent 
— carried on his Avork after his death ; and though perse- 
cuted, and often giving their testimony in prison and at the 
stake, they could not be suppressed. The Protestant mar- 
tyrology of England, long before the age of Luther, is rich in 
records of their suffering heroism. Their books, multiplied 
by the slow process of transcribing, were widely, though se- 
cretly, distributed ; were read with closed doors in many a 
household and in many a private assembly ; and were hand- 
ed down from sire to son as precious heir-looms. Their itin- 
erant preachers, passing quietly from place to place, and 
eluding — though not always — the vigilance of their enemies, 
kept alive the tradition of their doctrine, and strengthened 
the scattered disciples by making them know each other's 
faith and patience. When the Reformation began on the 
Continent, Wycliffisra or Lollardism was soon lost, or rather 
perpetuated, in Lutheranism or Protestantism, which found 
in England a soil well prepared for it. 

Considered in the other aspect, namely, as a political or 
national movement, the English Reformation, at its begin- 
ning, had no visible connection with the religious movement 
among the people. The history of England through the 
Middle Ages is largely the history of a chronic conflict be- 
tween the state, as represented by the king and Parliament, 
and the church, as governed by a foreign potentate, the 
pope. But that change in the ecclesiastical establishment 
of the realm which is commonly called by English writers 
" the reformation from popery," began when Henry VHL, 
who had written a book against Luther, and had been re- 
warded by the pope with the title " Defender of the Faith " 
— a title borne by all his successors — procured the consent of 
Parliament to his declaring himself the Supreme Head (1534) 
under Christ of the Church of England, and then constrained 
the clergy in Convocation to acknowledge his supremacy. 
Other changes followed. First was the suppression of the 



02 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IV. 

monasteries and the confiscation of their property in lands 
and treasures. That great wealth, instead of being reserved 
(as the religious reformers would have chosen) to be a fund 
for the education of the people, or for any public use, was 
lavishly — but, on the whole, perhaps not unwisely — distrib- 
uted by the king among his nobles and courtiers. Thus the 
breach between England and Rome, politically considered, 
was not only widened but made irreparable. Every lord 
who held any of the rich domains once belonging to mo- 
nastic corporations might be relied on for a steadfast opposi- 
tion to all measures tending toward a restoration of the old 
order of things. 

Such being the position of the government, it became im- 
portant, in a political view, that the populai;^ mind be turned 
against Rome. Accordingly, the Bible, translated into En- 
glish by Tyndale a few years before, instead of being, as it 
had been, a prohibited book, smuggled in from the Continent, 
was permitted, after a few unimportant corrections, to be 
printed and published in England ; and thus that great point 
— the right of the people to read the Scriptures — was indi- 
rectly conceded. But it was not till the following reign 
(that of the boy king, Edward VI., 1547) that the authorized 
doctrine and the devotional formularies of the Established 
Church were subjected to the hands of such reformers as 
Cranmer and Ridley ; and then it was that the scattered and 
persecuted followers of Wycliffe, as well as the many who 
had caught the new opinions then spreading on the Conti- 
nent and floating across the sea, found their cause victorious, 
as they supposed, in England. Thus, in that reign, and aft- 
erward at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth (1558), 
there was a temporary union of the religious reformation, 
originating and spreading among the people, with the polit- 
ico-ecclesiastical reformation conducted by the government. 
The ecclesiastical establishment was so modified, and the ad- 
ministration of it was so changed, that the remnant of Lol- 
lardism and the adherents of the Continental reformers re- 



A.D. 1534-62.] THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 63 

garded it as having virtually come over to them. Accord- 
ingly they were no longer excluded from the Church of En- 
gland, but were recognized as among the most zealous of its 
members. By their enthusiasm, propagating itself among 
the people, the reformed establishment was strengthened 
against the common enemy, and the chances of a reconcilia- 
tion with Rome, and of a consequent restitution of confiscated 
church property, were greatly diminished. 

That politico-ecclesiastical reformation brought the Church 
of England, considered as an establishment, with its endow- 
ments and its clergy, into a complete dependence on the 
crown, and a closer alliance than before with the landed aris- 
tocracy. In former ages, the Catholic Church in England, 
though connected with the state and to some extent influ- 
enced by the crown, had an independence which made it 
sometimes formidable to the secular power. But the great 
change begun under Henry VIII., and made permanent by 
the necessities and the policy of his daughter Elizabeth, dis- 
turbed the balance of power by annexing to the crown all 
that dominion over the Church which had formerly belonged 
to the pope. The ecclesiastical courts, with an extensive ju- 
risdiction which in these days would be called civil, became 
virtually the king's courts, and there was no more appealing 
of causes to Rome. By the removal of the " mitred abbots " 
from the House of Lords — where they with the bishops had 
always been a majority — and by the loss of the immense 
wealth which, at the dissolution of the monasteries, had 23ass- 
ed into the hands of the king, and thence into the hands of 
the lay aristocracy, the separate importance of the clergy as 
one of the estates of the realm was almost destroyed. At 
the same time, the great amount of church patronage — in- 
cluding the appointment of thousands of clergymen to their 
livings — which was transferred from the monastic corpora- 
tions to the king and to lay lords, separated the church, as 
an establishment, more than ever from the interests and sym- 
pathies of the lower orders, and completed its connection, not 



64 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IV. 

merely with the state, but with the king and the nobility. 
To all this must be added that unlimited superintendence 
over ecclesiastical aiiairs and over the religion of the people 
which was considered as belonging to the king by virtue of 
his being Head of the Church. 

Such was the political bondage of what is called the Church 
of England, as the government reformation left it : all the 
great ecclesiastical dignities, and thousands of the humbler 
benefices, at the disposal of the government ; the people, ex- 
cept in here and there an anomalous instance, excluded from 
influence, direct or indii'cct, over the appointment of their own 
parochial ministers; no synods or conventions, general or 
diocesan, with a lay representation, to regulate matters of 
common interest ; no convocation, even of the clergy, per- 
mitted to assemble save at the king's command, or, when as- 
sembled, permitted to engage in any business save by the 
king's particular warrant. 

Another result of that revolution in the ecclesiastical in- 
stitutions of England is conspicuous in the subsequent his- 
tory. The National Church contained, thenceforward, the 
elements of internal strife. Two dissimilar movements, as 
we have seen, were united in the English Reformation, but, 
though united as it were mechanically, they were not blend- 
ed. An irrepressible conflict w^as the consequence — a con- 
flict which continues to this day. On one hand was the 
great body of the old clergy, with their opinions and their 
sympathies and prejudices mostly unchanged. Having been 
coerced into the acknowledgment of blufi" King Harry as 
their Supreme Head on earth, they were led or driven from 
one change to another, till they found themselves using the 
English service-book instead of the old Latin Missal, and 
reading from their pulpits, as well as they could, the " Hom- 
ily against Idolatry," in edifices despoiled of the relics and 
the images which once adorned them. These men were nat- 
urally a conservative party with reactionary tendencies. 
They had accepted the revolution, not spontaneously, nor 



A.D. 1534-62.^ THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 65 

with a burning convi-ction that the old system was full of 
great errors and abuses which must be reformed at all haz- 
ards, but passively, and under the force of a habit of subor- 
dination. The law which compelled their celibacy having 
been taken away, they had generally become married men ; 
and their lawful wives and children — lawful while the Ref- 
ormation lasted — were hostages for their fidelity to the Pi-ot- 
estant establishmeat. At first, and for a long time, the pa- 
rochial clergy were generally of this description, for how 
could it be otherwise? Their tendency as a body was to 
keep the Reformation stationary by their dead weight, and 
to perpetuate in the Reformed Church of England the lelig- 
ious ideas in which they had been educated before the change. 
They were likely to feel that the Reformation had gone far 
enough ; and when they looked upon the churches no long- 
er smoking and fragrant with incense, nor gorgeous with the 
gold and gems of the altar; when they saw pictures and 
statues, before which the faithful once kneeled in worship, 
borne away, and the holiest relics cast out as unclean things ; 
still more, when they saw some old monastic building deso- 
late and falling into ruin ; most of all, when they looked upon 
some stately pile where, in the good old times, grave abbots 
had given alms to the poor, and had dispensed due hospital- 
ity to pilgrims and to princes, now possessed by some sacri- 
legious lord, masque and revel and the noise of boisterous 
banquets succeeding to the chanted prayers of men devoted 
to religion — it would not be strange if they felt that the 
Reformation had already been carried too far. 

Here w^as one great party in the National Church, which, 
having submitted to the new ariangeraents without much 
of a revolutionary spirit, looked toward the past Avith a feel- 
ing akin to regret. But on the other hand, the ecclesiastical 
establishment had received into itself a very different sort 
of men — wide-awake men, who were not merely reformed 
by an order from the King in Council or by an act of Parlia- 
ment, but wei'e reformers in their own persons — men whose 

E 



66 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IV 

ideas of reformation had come to them by tradition from 
Wycliffe, or by communication and sympathy with reform- 
ers on the Continent — men whose quarrel with Rome was 
not on the question of ecclesiastical supremacy merely, but 
on the whole system of religion — men whose protest against 
the pope, instead of being careful and measured, was ut- 
tered as in words of fire, and who were ready to die for 
their testimony. These were the movement party — the 
radicals — the destructives — if any choose to call them 
by such names. With them, or with many of them, ref- 
ormation, even to the destruction of every thing which they 
regarded as idolatrous or popish, was a passion. Their sym- 
pathies were with the people more than with the court ; they 
were fitted for influence with the people ; and therefore, when 
the government would thoroughly bring off the people from 
the old Avays, it called these men to its aid ; and some of 
them — such as the plain-dealing Latimer, Fox, the author of 
the " Book of Martyrs," the sturdy and scrupulous Hooper, 
and even (at one time) that intractable Scotchman, John 
Knox — were placed in stations of honor and wide influence. 
While the Reformation was going forward, men of this qual- 
ity were in their element ; but when its progress was arrest- 
ed, and the government had resolved that it should go no 
farther, they were disappointed and dissatisfied. Sc long as 
the permanency of the changes which the government had 
undertaken to introduce was not yet sure, and fiery spirits 
were needed to carry the work forward, these men were nec- 
essary to the government, and were therefore in favor ; but 
when the business of reforming was no longer in hand, and 
the objects Avhich sovereign and courtiers had in view were 
felt to be well enough secured, such men were no longer in 
alliance with the court. Gradually they fell back to their 
original position among the people as reformers on their own 
account. 

Then began that age-long conflict in the Church of En- 
gland between the government Protestantism, on the one 



A.D. 1560.] THE PURITANS. 67 

hand, completed and immovable, and the demand, on the 
other hand, for a more thorough reformation that should 
carry the National Church and the national Christianity back 
to the original purity portrayed in the Scriptures. On one 
side were the court, and those who were called " the court 
clergy." On the other side were the PuPiItans, so named 
from their demand for purity in the worship of God and in 
the administration of Christ's ordinances. As in many a 
similar conflict, the line of division was not very sharply 
drawn between the jiarties. There were Puritans more or 
less decided in their opinions, and more or less resolute in 
word and deed ; but, at first, there was no Puritan party act- 
ing in concert under acknowledged leaders. 

Such was the origin of Puritanism in England, and such 
was its position three hundred years ago, when Elizabeth 
was queen. It was not, nor did it intend to be, a secession 
or separation from the National Church. It must not be 
thought that the Puritans were "Dissenters" in the modern 
meaning of that word. They were not Congregationalists 
in their theory of the church ; nor, at first, were they even 
Presbyterians. Certainly the great body of them, in the 
earliest stages of the conflict, had not arrived at the conclu- 
sion that diocesan episcopacy must be got rid of At first 
the most advanced of them were only " Nonconformists," 
deviating from some of the prescribed regulations in the per- 
formance of public worship. As Christian Englishmen, they 
were, according to the theory which I have called National- 
ism, members of the Church of England; and what they de- 
sired was not liberty to withdraw from that National Church 
and to organize what would now be called a distinct "de- 
nomination ;" nor was it merely liberty in the National Church 
to worship according to their own idea of Christian simplic- 
ity and purity — though, doubtless, many of them would have 
been contented with that. What they desired was reforma- 
tion of the National Church itself by national authority. 

While the conflict was in its earliest stage, the episcopal 



68 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IV, 

element in the constitution of the ecclesiastical establishment 
seems not to have been seriously called in question. On the 
contrary, it was conceded by those who desired more refor- 
mation that the king might lawfully appoint officers to su- 
perintend and govern the clergy, and those superintend- 
ents, tliough called bishops, were regarded as deriving their 
authority from the king. Puritanism first appeared in tlie 
form of a protest against certain ceremonies and vestments 
which were required by law in the celebration of public wor- 
ship. The Act of Uniformity, in the first year of the reign 
of Elizabeth, established the Book of Common Pi'ayer as the 
only form for the worship of God by any religious assembly ; 
and every minister deviating from the directions printed in 
that book (called "rubrics," because originally printed with 
red ink) was liable to severe penalties. Some of those di- 
rections required the use of certain ceremonies which were 
regarded by the more advanced Protestants as teaching or 
sanctioning an uncliristian and pernicious superstition. The 
sign of the cross in baptism, the use of a ring in marriage, 
and kneeling to partake of the Lord's Supj^er, were particu- 
larly objected to on that ground. But, most of all, some of 
tlie vestments required to be worn by ministers in the pre- 
scribed worship were protested against. Nobody found fault 
with the scholar's gown which the clergy wore in preaching. 
On all sides, that was admitted to be a becoming dress for 
those who served as teachers in the church, and something 
of the kind was universal in the Protestant churches of oth- 
er countries. But the priestly surplice, which the minister 
must wear when administering sacraments or performing 
"divine service," was associated in all minds with the super- 
stitions which Protestants abhorred, and which the Refor- 
mation had undertaken to abolish. It was a sign that the 
official who wore it was not merely a recognized minister of 
the Gospel, but a veritable priest with supernatural functions. 
Every body knew that the wearing of it was required out 
of deference to popular superstition. To the ignorant peo- 



A.D. 1560.] THE PURITANS. 69 

pie, who were disposed to hanker after the old ideas, it had 
as real a meaning as the " wearing of the green " has now 
to Irish Fenians. To earnest Protestants it had the same 
sort of meaning which the gray uniform of the " Confeder- 
ates" in the late war had to the " boys in blue" who were 
fighting for the Union. The controversy about ^ceremonies 
and vestments, in the reign of Elizabeth, was essentially the 
same with the Ritualistic agitation in the reign of Victoria 
— an agitation which shakes the Church of England to-day, 
and is not wholly unfelt in the United States. After so 
many ages of philosophic sneering at the Puritans for their 
scrupulousness about such matters as the cut and color of 
a prescribed garment, all parties in the English establish- 
ment are now compelled to confess that questions about 
things indifferent in themselves — as, for example, whether the 
French flag shall be white or tricolor — may acquire a signif- 
icance which shall make them worth dying for. That con- 
flict three hundred years ago was the same in principle with 
the conflict now ; for behind the sacerdotal millinery and frip- 
pery, behind the significant and pompous ceremonies, there 
stood then, as there stands now, a body of anti-evangelical 
and really antichristian doctrine — another Gospel, which is 
really no Gospel at all — another theory than that of Paul 
and of Jesus Christ concerning the way to be saved. 

Conscience, in conscientious men, when it has been roused 
to declare itself, is an obstinate thing. The conscience of 
the Puritans, and especially of the Puritans among the clergy, 
did declare itself against the symbols of superstition ; and 
so numerous were those who, in one point or another, refused 
to conform, and so eminent were they for fidelity and abil- 
ity in their ministry and for learning, that for a while their 
nonconformity was connived at by the ecclesiastical author- 
ities, and the more because many of the bishops were in sym- 
pathy with that party. But in a few years after the acces- 
sion of Elizabeth (1565), when such ecclesiastical reforma- 
tion had been made as she chose to tolerate, a royal i^i'ocla- 



70 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES [CH. IV. 

mation was issued demanding a strict conformity. In the 
city of London, thirty-seven out of ninety-eight beneficed 
clergymen refused to make the promise which was required 
of them, and were immediately excluded from the perform- 
ance of their ministry.^ A company of Puritans who vent- 
ured to meet for worship in their own way (1567), found 
that there were penalties for the nonconforming laity as well 
as for nonconforming clergymen. Their meeting was broken 
up, and a large number of' them were imprisoned to study 
in their confinement the principles of church order,^ lu all 
parts of England there were similar proceedings, 

Not many years passed before the conflict entered on an- 
other stage of its progress, and new questions were oj^ened 
between the Puritans and those who ruled the ecclesiastical 
establishment. The rigorous enforcement of the Act of Uni- 
formity by bishops on laity as well as clergy, and the forci- 
ble suppression of the private assemblies in Avhich noncon- 
formists ventured to meet for social worship, had an ettect 
which a little knowledge of human nature might have antic- 
ipated. Puritans, instead of being convinced by such argu- 
ments, began to consider whether the system of ecclesias- 
tical government which was so conservative of superstitious 
vestments and ceremonies ought not to be more radically re- 
formed. Thomas Cartwright, Lady Margaret Professor of 
Divinity in the University of Cambridge, a man of great ce- 
lebrity for learning and eloquence, began (1570) to discuss 
in his lectures the theory of church government as given in 
the Scriptures ; and he did not hesitate to say in what par- 
ticulars the actual arrangements for the government of the 
Church of England were widely divergent from the most an- 
cient examples, and especially from the authoritative prece- 
dents and principles of the New Testament. Still holding 
the vicious theory that an independent Christian nation is 
an independent Christian church, he aimed at nothing more 

' Neal, i., 'JS, 99. ^ Ibid., p. 108, 109. 



A.D. 1560.] THE PURITANS. 71 

than a complete reformation by the government ; but the 
system which he would have the queen and Parliament es- 
tablish in England was essentially that of Geneva and of 
Scotland. Thenceforward the Puritans, as a party, looked 
for something more than the removal of a few obnoxious 
ceremonies, and the privilege of officiating in a black gown 
instead of a white surplice. Thenceforward they would be 
satisfied with nothing less than an entire revision and recon- 
struction of the ecclesiastical establishment. Under Cart- 
wright's influence, English Puritanism became, essentially, in 
its ideas and aspirations, Presbyterianism like that of Hol- 
land or of Scotland. 

To describe the progress of that controversy in the Church 
of England would be aside from our purpose. It was a long 
and bitter controversy. On one side there was power, on 
the other side there was the obstinacy of conscience. On 
one side was the queen, with the splendor of her court and 
government, with her inborn love of pomp as well as of 
power, with her imperious will, and with her unbounded pop- 
ularity as a princess whose right to the throne, and even the 
legitimacy of her birth, were identified with Protestantism. 
On the other side was the people's abhorrence of the pope 
and all his works — the English " no-popery," which had been 
long growing, especially among the middle-class people, and 
which had gained both extension and intensity from the viv- 
idly remembered atrocities in the reign of Mary. On one 
side were some good men and learned, conservative by nat- 
ure and by training, who thankfully accepted as much of ref- 
ormation as the queen would give them, and quietly waited 
for more, with many other men, not so good nor so learned, 
whose feeling was that the queen had already done quite 
enough, and even more than enough, in the way of church 
reformation. On the other side there was no less of learn- 
ing, and much more of earnest religious feeling. On one 
side was the fixed purpose of Elizabeth Tudor, and (after a 
while) of the prelates who depended on her favor, to extin- 



72 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IV. 

guish the nonconforming and reforming jsarty by depriva- 
tion and silencing, by exorbitant fines, by confinement in 
loathsome and pestilential prisons. On the other side there 
was the invisible yet invincible might of those who suffer 
for conscience' sake. 

On both sides it was held that the bishop of Rome had 
no rightful authority in England. On both sides there was 
a fatal error — fatal to liberty, and fatal in the end to godli- 
ness — the error of supposing that Christian England, being 
an independent nation, was therefore an independent church 
— the Church of England. Both held a fatal error in assum- 
ing that there must be a national church, one and indivisi- 
ble, and that the reformation of the church could be wrought 
only by the legislative and executive sovereignty of the na- 
tion. 

Something better than Puritanism was necessary to liberty, 
and to the restoration of simple and primitive Christianity. 



A.D. 15G0.] REFORMATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 



CHAPTER V. 

REFORMATION WITHOUT TARRYING FOR ANY. 

What Puritanism demanded was an ecclesiastical reforma- 
tion to be made by the national authoi-ity. Queen Eliza- 
beth and the Parliament, as having full legislative power in 
England, were to revise the established forms of public wor- 
ship and purge out all idolatrous symbols and slii^erstitious 
ceremonies. The laws concerning uniformity w'ere to be 
changed, not in the interest of liberty or of " broad-church" 
principles, but in the interest of primitive purity and sim- 
plicity. The entire constitution of ecclesiastical government, 
which had really undergone no change except by putting 
the queen into the pope's place, was to be taken down and 
reconstructed. The reforming party, in its study of the 
Scriptures, had learned that archbishops and archdeacons 
were not known to the apostles ; that the bishops mentioned 
in the New Testament were clficers of local churches only, 
and not rulers over many churches in one diocese ; that the 
so-called ecclesiastical courts, with their fines and imprison- 
ments [pro salute animaruni] for the health of the souls of 
nonconformists and other oiFenders, bore no resemblance to 
the arrangements instituted by the apostles for the primitive 
churches. Therefore the Puritans demanded that all these 
things, and more of the same sort, should be set right by the 
national authority, inasmuch as the English nation itself, 
baptized and Protestant, was the Church of England. No 
withdrawal from the National Church was to be thought of, 
for til at would be schism. 

When Puritan clergymen ofiiciated without the surplice, 
or baptized without the sign of the cross, or pronounced the 
nuptial benediction on bride and bridegroom who had been 



74 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [cH. Y. 

married without a ring, or aclniiiiistered the Lord's Supper 
to communicants who received it without kneeling, they 
did not consider themselves as seceding from the National 
Church, but only as disregarding, in deference to the supreme 
authority of Christ, certain regulations which, being made in 
derogation of his law, were without force in his church, and 
ought to be disregarded at all hazards. When, after being 
silenced and deprived of their livings for their nonconform- 
ity, they met with their friends in private assemblies for 
worship, they bad no intention of organizing another church 
outside of the Church of England, but, as members of the 
National Church, they insisted on obeying God rather than 
men. So in these days, the Old-Catholic clergy and laity in 
Germany do not regard themselves as seceding from the 
Catholic, nor from the Roman Catholic Church. It is as 
Catholics and not Protestants that they reject the author- 
ity of the Vatican Council, and maintain that the sentences 
of excommunication hurled against them by a not infallible 
pope are invalid. 

But under oppression men sometimes get new light. As 
the urging of conformity to an obnoxious ritual led Thomas 
Cartwright and others to investigate the theory of church 
government, and to demand a warrant from the Scrij^tures 
for the system of diocesan episcopacy, so, under the dis- 
cipline of impoverishing fines and tedious imprisonments, 
some of the sufferers began to doubt whether the exception- 
al institution called the Church of England — having Eliza- 
beth Tudor as its supreme ruler on earth, to whom every 
minister of God's word was responsible for his preacliing 
and for all his spiritual administrations — was really a church 
of Christ in any legitimate meaning of that phrase. The 
more they studied the New Testament, the less they could 
find bearing a resemblance to that or any othe.r National 
Church. Questions were beginning to emerge which had 
not yet been fairly considered. Did the apostles institute 
any national church? Did Christ intend that his Catholic 



A.D. 1558-67.] KEFOKMATION WITHOUT TAKRYIXG. 75 

Ohurcli should be made up of uational churches mutually 
independent ? Was it his plan that in every nation the Cse- 
sar or other sovereign, if baptized, should be supreme over 
the church also? If not, what was his intention when he 
se.nt forth his disciples to convert all nations ? Noncon- 
formists were holding conventicles in private rooms, with 
the doors shut for fear of informers and persecutors; but in 
what capacity or character were they thus assembled ? 
What was the relation of such assemblies, and what the re- 
lation of the queen's National Church to the true church of 
Christ in England? 

Such questionings among the Puritans gave origin to an- 
other party aiming at a more radical reformation. The men 
of the new party, instead of remaining in the Church of En- 
gland to reform it, boldly withdrew themselves from that 
ecclesiastico-political organization, denouncing that and all 
other so-called national churches as institutions unknown 
to the law and mind of Christ, The idea of separation, in 
some sort, from the State Church, in order to regain the sim- 
plicity of Christian institutions, must have occurred to many 
minds, before any attempt was made to jjropound a theory 
of separation and to embody it in organized churches. Ev- 
ery act of nonconforming worship by Lollards before the 
Reformation, or by Protestants in that bloody restoration of 
Romanism which filled up the five years between the deatli 
of Edward VI. and the accession of Elizabeth, was, practical- 
ly, though not in theory, an assertion of religious liberty. 
On the part of the worshipers, every such act implied, logi- 
cally if not consciously, a denial of any right in the civil 
power to prescribe by law what they should believe and 
profess concerning God, or in what forms they should wor- 
ship. But ordinarily the protests against what remained 
of superstition in the National Church were not protests 
against the theory of Nationalism ; and the private meet- 
ings of Nonconformists for the enjoyment of a purer worship 
were nothing more than a practical appeal to a higher law 



76 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. V. 

with whioli the lower law was in conflict, but which ought 
to be recognized and enforced by the legislative authority 
of England. Even when congregations were organized, as 
they seem to have been in some instances, to meet statedly 
for worship according to the Scriptures, using the Geneva 
Service-book instead of the Book of Common Prayer, it does 
not appear, save in one obscure instance, that they regarded 
themselves as any thing else than provisional congregations 
of oppressed Christians in the Church of England, separating 
not so much from the National Church as IVom its disorders 
and corruptions, till "the reliques of Antichrist" should be 
swept away by act of Parliament. 

Documents, without date, not long ago discovered in the 
State Paper Ofiice of the English government, show that, 
as early perhaps as the tenth year in the reign of Elizabeth 
(1567), there was a congregation calling itself "the Privye 
Church in London," and describing itself as " a poor congre- 
gation whom God hath separated from the churches of En- 
gland and from the mingled and false worshiping therein 
used." It was a church professing that its members, "by 
the strength and working of the Almighty, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, have set their hands and hearts to the pure, unmin- 
gled, and sincere worshiping of God according to his blessed 
and glorious word . . . abolishing and abhorring all inventions 
and traditions of men." It held its Lord's-day and its week- 
day meetings. " So as God giveth strength," said they, " we 
do serve the Lord every Sabbath-day in houses, and on the 
fourth day in the week we come together weekly to use 
prayer and exercise discipline on them which do deserve it, 
by the strength and sure warrant of the Lord's good word," 
It was a persecuted church. "This secret and disguised An- 
tichrist," said they, " to wit, this canon law with the branches 
and maintainers" — in other words, the ecclesiastical courts 
and the queen's Hign Commission — "have by long imprison- 
ment pined and killed the Lord's servants, as our minister 
Richard Fitz, Thomas Rowland, deacon . . . and besides them 



A.D. 1567.] EEFOEMATIOX WITHOUT TAEEYTNG. 7*7 

a great multitude . . . whose good cause and foitbful testi- 
mony — though we should cease to groan and cry unto our 
God to redress such wrongs and cruel handlings of his poor 
members — the very walls of the prisons about this city (as 
the Gate-house, Bridewell, the Counters, the King's Bench, 
the Marshalsea, the White Lion) would testify God's anger 
kindled against this land for such injustice." ^ 

That "secret and disguised Antichrist" complained of by 
the sufferers was an important element in the ecclesiastical 
government of England, and was every Avhere present to 
suppress both separation from the Established Church and 
nonconformity within the church. What was it ? 

All persons within the realm of England were under the 
government of the Church of England, and were therefore 
subject to the judicial authority of the bishops in their sev- 
eral dioceses. That authority was exercised in ecclesiastical 
or " spiritual " courts. Lowest of these was the Archdea- 
con's Court, which was held, in the absence of the archdea- 
con, by a judge appointed as his substitute, and called his 
official. Next was the Consistory Court of the diocese, held 
in the cathedral, the bishop's chancellor or commissary pre- 
siding as judge. The Court of Arches, va. London, was that 
to which appeals were brought from the consistory courts 
in the several dioceses in the province of Canterbury, there 
being a similar court for appeals in the province of York. 
The judge in each of these courts was supposed to represent 
the " spiritual " authority of the archbisho]^ ; and the final 
appeal was from these archiepiscopal courts to the supreme 
head of the ecclesiastical establishment, namely, to a Court 
of Delegates, or commissioners, appointed by the sovereign to 
represent that supremacy over the Church of England which 
had been wrested from the pope. Other ecclesiastical courts 
there were — some of them mere shops for the sale of "dis- 
pensations, licenses, faculties, and other remnants of the 

' Waddington, "Congregational History," p. 742-745. 



78 GENESIS OF THE XEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. T. 

papal extortions" — but no description of them is necessary 
here. 

All these courts, except the last, were from ancient times, 
and were spared by the conservative genius of the English 
Reformation. But that Reformation itself had created an- 
other tribunal — higher, more powerful, and more terrible 
than all the rest. By the Act of Supremacy, which stands 
tii'st among the statutes of the reign of Elizabeth, and which 
tinally separated the ecclesiastical establishment of England 
from the see of Rome, the queen was empowered to estab- 
lish what was afterward known as the "High Commission 
for Causes Ecclesiastical." Her commissioners, " being nat- 
ural-born subjects," but otherwise appointed at her absolute 
discretion as " supreme governor " of the Church of England, 
were authorized " to use, occupy, and exercise, under her, all 
manner of jurisdiction, privileges, and pre-eminences touch- 
ing any spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the 
realms of England and Ireland." By that authority, they 
were " to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all 
errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, oflenses, and enor- 
mities whatsoever." As reconstituted, with some unimpor- 
tant changes, in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth 
(1584), the High Commission consisted of forty-four commis- 
sioners. Twelve of these were bishops, several were mem- 
bers of the Privy Council, others were clergymen or laymen 
of lower degree. The commissioners — or any three of them, 
one being a bishop — were empowered to make inquiry con- 
cerning " all heretical opinions, seditious books, contempts, 
conspiracies, false rumors or talks, slanderous words and say- 
ings ;" to punish all persons willfully " absent from church or 
divine service established by law ;" to " visit and reform all 
errors, heresies, and schisms," and to do many other like 
things. They were empowered " to call before them all per- 
sons suspected " of ecclesiastical offenses, to examine them 
on their oaths, though (or rather, in order that) in their an- 
swers they might criminate themselves^ and to punish them, 



A.D. 1574.] KEFORMATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 79 

if refractory, by excommunication (a terrible penalty in En- 
glish law), by fines at discretion, and by unlimited imprison- 
ment. All "sheriffs, justices, and other officers," were to be 
at their command for the purpose of apprehending or caus- 
ing to be apprehended any persons Avhom they might require 
to be brought before them. This terrible enginery for the 
enforcement of worship and of religious opinion was employ- 
ed not in London only — the chief seat of the High Commis- 
sion — but throughout the realm wherever one of the twelve 
bishops and two of the other commissioners might choose to 
hold a commission court.' Proceeding, like other ecclesias- 
tical courts, against offenders and suspected persons accord- 
ino- to the methods of the canon and civil law, the Hioh 
Commission for Causes Ecclesiastical might well be called 
the English Inquisition. 

That we may sec clearly in Avhat school the more ad- 
vanced and uncomjDromising Puritans were studying, and 
what means were employed to give them right views of 
church polity, we must look at some instances of individual 
exjDerience. 

The old town of Bury St. Edmunds, in the county of Suf- 
folk, is in the diocese of the Bishop of Norwich. Of that di- 
ocese, John Parkhurst, a Puritan Conformist, had been bish- 
op from the time of the restoration of Protestantism by Eliz- 
abeth. His ideal of reformation was the ecclesiastical order 
which he saw at Zurich when he found refuge there from the 
persecution under Mary. Being himself a diligent preacher, 
he had been much more intent on having the Gospel intelli- 
gently preached in every parish than on persecuting those 
preachers who were more scrupulous than he about the cer- 
emonies and the vestments. Consequently the diocese, at 
his death (1574), was greatly infested with Puritanism.^ His 
successor, Edmund Freke, was of another sort, and was a 

' The queen's patent appointing the High Commissioners, as tlie com-L 
was reconstituted, Jen. 7, 1583-4, may be read in Neal, i., IGU, note. 
" Neal, i., t)2, 128, 133, 134, 



80 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. V. 

bishop after the queen's own heart. From the beginning of 
his administration, the established method of dealing with 
scrupulous consciences was perseveringly employed. Minis- 
ters of the Gospel, beloved and honored for their work's sake 
in their parishes, were vexed with prosecutions in the eccle- 
siastical courts, were suspended from their ministry, were 
sentenced to imprisonment for six months, for a year, or for 
life. All this, instead of reconciling the Puritan clergy or 
people to the system imposed upon them, made them more 
obstinate in their scruples and more daring in their inquiries. 
At Bury, especially, and in its vicinity, the growing dislike 
to the imprisonment of godly men, as a method of church 
discipline, seems to have prepared some advanced minds for 
the revolutionary idea of churches mutually independent, 
formed by the voluntary union of believing souls, and gov- 
erning themselves by Christ's authority without asking leave 
of prince or prelate. 

Among the earliest who received and attempted to realize 
that conception were John Copping, Elias Thacker, and Rob- 
ert Browne, all clergymen of the Established Church. The 
first of these, with another clergyman, Tyler, was shut up in 
the common jail of Bury for nonconfoi'mjty (1576), only a 
few months, at the latest, after the consecration ofFreke as 
Bishop of Norwich ; and there he remained seven years, while 
the bishop and his very zealous commissary, aided by the 
High Commission, were using with desperate persistence all 
the oppressive enginery with which the Act of Supremacy 
and the Act of Uniformity had armed them to put down 
Puritanism. But Puritanism Avould not be put down. When 
earnest ministers of the Gospel were suspended, deprived of 
their livings, silenced, and imprisoned for conscience' sake, 
their suiferings and remonstrances (for it was not their wont 
to suffer such things without remonstrance) stimulated the 
growth of nonconformity in the parishes. Something of the 
English spirit of resistance to aggression, and of the old-time 
conflict between the common law and the law administered 



A.D. 1581.] EEFORMIATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 81 

by ecclesiastical functionaries, entered into the growing ex- 
citement. The bishop found himself in conflict with the sec- 
ular authorities of Bury, and knowing that his policy was 
the queen's policy, he sent forward charges (1581) to the 
Lord Treasurer Burleigh against the justices who had used 
their influence, official and personal, in favor of the noncon- 
forming clergy and against his proceedings. Four of those 
magistrates, for themselves and their associates, replied to 
the bishop's complaint. Professing their own loyalty, and 
attirming that they " countenanced none but such as are lov- 
ers of God's true religion and dutiful subjects to her maj^ 
esty," they charged the bishop with sinister intentions in 
not removing Copping and Tyler from the common jail in 
Bury, where they had been so many years imprisoned, to his 
own prison in Norwich ; and they boldly maintained that 
he, by his pertinacious attempts to introduce into the par- 
ishes of his diocese clergymen too ignorant to preach, had 
shown himself a patron of ignorance in the church and an 
enemy to the preaching of the Word of God. The bishop's 
complaint against the justices appears to have been dismiss- 
ed, but there was no relief for the prisoners, and — though 
Lord Burleigh himself interceded by writing to the bishop 
— no less rigor in the treatment of nonconforming clergy- 
men. 

Robert Browne was a young man of impetuous and reck- 
less zeal, and eloquent in popular discourse, but of an im- 
perious, passionate, and unstable disposition. He was an 
active and daring agitator, not only in that diocese, but in 
other parts of England. More than once he had been call- 
ed to account for ecclesiastical irregularities ; and once, at 
least, he had been imprisoned at Norwich by the High 
Commission Court. But being a kinsman of the queen's 
most trusted and most powerful counselor, Lord Burleigh, 
he had a measure of impunity from which he seems to have 
taken courage. Not long after his release, in compliance 
with Lord Burleigh's request to the bishop, from the prisoa 

F 



82 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. V. 

at Norwich, he was constrained to flee from England, as 
many had done already, and at Middleburg, in the Dutch 
republic, he gathered a church of English exiles, chiefly 
friends of his who had accompanied liim (1582). At that 
place he printed two books or pamphlets, setting forth dis- 
tinctly the new idea of church reformation, which was noth- 
ing else than to restore the purely voluntary Christianity of 
the New Testament. Such books could not have been print- 
ed in England but by stealth ; yet they were printed for cir- 
culation and efiect in England, as Tyndale's translation of 
the New Testament had been more than fifty years before 
that time. 

The first of those books was entitled "A Book which 
showeth the Life and Manners of all true Christians, and 
how unlike they are unto Turks and Papists and Heathen 
Folk. Also, the Points and Parts of all Divinity — that is, of 
the Revealed Will and Word of God — are declared by their 
several Definitions and Divisions." Some of the statements 
and definitions in that book are w^orthy to be remembered, 
as indicating the depth and breadth of the new reformation- 
which w^as contemplated, and the simplicity of its idea. 

"The New Testament," said this radical reformer," which 
is called the Gospel, or glad tidings, is a joyful and plain de- 
claring and teaching, by a due message, of the remedy of 
our miseries through Christ our Redeemer, who is come in 
the flesh, a Saviour unto those which worthily receive this 
message, and hath fulfilled the old ceremonies." Christian- 
ity, in this rudimental definition of it, is a simple thing — not 
a hierarchy, not a ritual, not a system of dogmas — but the 
intelligible story of a remedy for human miseries through 
Christ our Redeemer, who by his coming has fulfilled, and 
by fulfilling has abolished, the old ritual prophetic of his re- 
deeming work; and "all true Christians" are all those who 
worthily receive the story. 

But is there, then, no church^ Is Christianity nothing 
more than a story told and received? Is the church noth- 



A.D. 1582.] REFORMATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 83 

ing more than the unorganized and invisible unity of those 
who receive the Gospel? Yes. "The church planted or 
gathered [the organized institution] is a company or number 
of Christians or believers, which, by a willing covenant made 
with their God, are under the government of God and Christ, 
and keep his laws in one holy communion, because Christ 
hath redeemed them unto holiness and happiness forever, 
from which they were fallen by the sin of Adam." "The 
church government is the Lordship of Christ in the com- 
munion of his offices ; whereby his people obey his will, and 
have mutual use of their graces and callings, to further their 
godliness and welfare." 

If the church is no more than this — if the government of 
the church is only the free obedience of Christ's people to 
his will in mutual helpfulness, in order to their godliness and 
welfare — where and what is Christ's kingdom ? How can he 
have a kingdom without ecclesiastical courts and canon law ? 
"The kingdom of Christ," in the programme of that new 
reformation, " is his office of government, whereby he useth 
the obedience of his people to keep his laws and command- 
ments to their salvation and welfare." "The kingdom of 
Antichrist is his government confirmed by the civil magis- 
trate, whereby he abuseth the obedience of the people to 
keep his evil laws and customs to their own damnation." 
The pope, then, may be dethroned ; but if the civil magistrate 
come into his place to confirm the "evil laws and customs" 
which the apostasy brought in, the kingdom of Antichrist 
remains. 

What, then, of excommunication ? Are there to be neither 
consistory courts nor presbyterial judicatures in the king- 
dom of Christ ? Are there to be no " spiritual " penalties of 
fine and imprisonment inflicted in the name of the church — 
no sentence of excommunication with consequent civil dis- 
abilities? What is to be substituted for all this? Simply 
the voluntary action of the church freely separating itself 
from ofienders and the ofienders from itself " Separation 



84 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES [CH. V. 

of the open, willful, or grievous oifenders is a dutifulness of 
the church in withholding from them the Christian com- 
munion and fellowship, by pronouncing and showing the 
covenant of Christian communion to be broken by their 
grievous wickedness, and that with mourning, fisting, and 
prayer for them, and denouncing God's judgment against 
them." 

Is the church, then, an ungoverned and unorganized as- 
sembly ? No ; it is served and guided by officers of its own 
choice, each with appropriate and definite duties. ^^ A jyastor 
is a person having office and message of God, for exhorting 
and moving especially, and guiding accordingly; for the 
which he is tried to be meet, and thereto is duly chosen by 
the church which calleth him, or received by obedience 
where he planteth the church." "A teacher of doctrine is a 
person having office and message of God for teaching espe- 
cially, and guiding accordingly, with less gift to exhort and 
apply ; for the which he is tried to be meet, and thereto is 
duly chosen by the church which calleth him, or received by 
obedience where he planteth the church." "An elder, or 
more forward in gift, is a person having office and message 
of God for oversight and counsel, and redressing things 
amiss;" and he, too, is in like manner tried and chosen by 
the church. " The 7'eliever is a person having office of God, 
to provide, gather, and bestow the gifts and liberality of the 
church as there is need; to the which office he is tried and 
received as meet." " The icicloio is a person having office 
of God to pray for the church, and to visit and minister to 
those which are afflicted and distressed in the church ; for 
the which she is tried and received as meet." 

But what service does this Utopian church render to the 
queen? What obedience does it pay to those who rule by 
her commission and under her supreme authority? The an- 
swer is not wanting. " Civil magistrates are persons au- 
thorized of God, and received by the consent or choice of the 
people, whether officers or subjects, or by birth and succes- 



A.D. 1582.] REFOEMATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 85 

sion also, to make and execute laws by public agreement, to 
rule the commonwealth in all outward justice, and to main- 
tain the right welfare and honor thereof, with outward power, 
bodily punishments, and civil forcing of men." This was 
written, or at least printed, under the protection of a re- 
public; the reference to "the consent or choice of the peo- 
ple" was therefore natural. But the book was to have its 
circulation and effect in England, and therefore it recognized 
" birth and succession also " as a method in which " persons " 
might be " authorized of God and received " to rule the com- 
monwealth, and to maintain its rights, welfare, and honor in 
peace or war, not bearing the sword in vain.^ 

Of the other book printed under Browne's direction at Mid- 
dleburg and sent into England, we know little more than its 
title, which was strikingly significant of the contents. It an- 
nounced itself as a treatise " Of Reformation without tarry- 
ing for any ; and of the wickedness of those preachers who 
will not reform themselves and their charge, because they 
will tarry till the magistrate command and compel them." 
The very title was a declaration of war against Puritanism, 
waiting and agitating for Reformation of the National 
Church by act of Parliament. It implied that those who 
would follow Christ in the regeneration of England must 
begin by withdrawing from the queen's ecclesiastical estab- 
lishment, and gathering believers into voluntary churches 
just as the first believers were gathered into churches by 
the apostles and their helpers. 

These two books, printed out of the reach of English laws 
and English ofiicers, were sent into England ; for in Holland 
they could be read only by a few exiles. At that time Cop- 
ping had been five years a prisoner "for his disobedience 
to the ecclesiastical laws of the realm, whereunto he would 
not yet conform himself, although he had been sundry times 
exhorted thereto by many godly and learned preachers re- 

' Hanbuiy, "Historical Memorials," i., 19-22. 



86 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CHo V. 

pairing publicly to him to bring him to conformity." A 
child had been born to him there in Bury, and had remained 
month after month unbaptized, because he had insisted that 
no mere priest— none but a preacher of the Gospel — should 
baptize a child of his, and that no godfathers and godmoth- 
ers should have part in the baptism. It is also reported con- 
cerning him that he held many fantastical opinions, where- 
by he did very much hurt there in Bury," so that " learned 
preachers," as well as Puritan magistrates, " wished him to 
be removed out of the prison for preventing the doing of 
more hurt." On the morning of the feast of All Saints, when 
the chaplain, as required by the regulations, had " said morn- 
ing prayer to the prisoners," Copping, embracing so good 
an opportunity for disputation, called him a "dumb dog," 
and said that the keeping of saints' days was idolatry. He 
even said something to the effect that a coronation oath to 
set forth God's glory directly in conformity with the Script- 
ures, if taken and not jjerformed, was perjury ; and if he did 
not infer, others made the inference for him, that the queen 
was therefore perjured. The infectiousness of his "fantas- 
tical opinions" is implied in the anxiety of Puritan preach- 
ers and magistrates for his removal, and the removal of 
those who for the same cause were his fellow-prisoners, to 
the ecclesiastical jail at Norwich ; and it may have been the 
reason why the bishop would not consent to the desired re- 
moval. Norwich itself was full of Puritanism, and there, 
no less than at Bury, imprisoned Nonconformists, if Copping 
were among them, might take the infection of his opinions 
as naturally as they might take the jail fever. 

When those ominous books made their appearance in En- 
gland, the diocese of Norwich, especially the county of Suf- 
folk, had already become a field prepared for the reception 
of such seed ; and from the jail at Bury the seed seems to 
have been dispersed. Elias Thacker, of whom little else is 
known than what is now to be related, was a fellow-prisoner 
with Copping, and took part with him and others in the ar- 



A.D. 1583.] REFORMATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 87 

rangements for putting the books into circulation. It is not 
unreasonable to suppose — though positive evidence is want- 
ing — that the relation of these men, and of others whose 
names have not come down to us, to Browne's attempt, was 
more than that of accessories after the fact ; in other words, 
that the books were written and printed in conformity with 
a plan agreed upon before Browne's departure from England, 
and were the result of consultation among thoughtful and 
resolute men who had already accepted the theory of separa- 
tion. Be that as it may, the agitation thus inaugurated was 
regarded as a high crime against the government ; and for 
their co-operation in "spreading certain books seditiously 
penned by Robert Browne against the Book of Common Pray- 
er," Copping and Thacker, having been thus far in the hands 
of the bishop and the High Commission, were transferred to 
the secular power, and tried under a charge of sedition (1583, 
June). The alleged sedition was that, in the books distributed 
by them, the queen's supremacy over the church was denied. 
That they incited the queen's subjects to any rebellion or tu- 
mult, or to any breach of the peace ; that they denied in 
anywise her civil supremacy over all persons and all estates 
within the realm — was not pretended. But only for holding 
the church polity of the New Testament, namely, the in- 
alienable right and duty of Christian men to associate, volun- 
tarily, for worship and communion, in separate and self-gov- 
erned, churches — only for putting into circulation certain 
tracts for the times, in which that theory was set forth and 
vindicated — those two clergymen were found guilty of sedi- 
tion, under the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice of England. 
One of the archbishop's chaplains, as in duty bound, la- 
bored with his two brethren thus condemned to die ; but he 
could not bring them to the desired repentance. Nor is it 
likely that the success of his spiritual counsel would, have 
been greater had the time been extended. It was only a 
" short shi'ift." Thacker on the 4th of June, and Copping on 
the 6th, died, not indeed as heretics, amid " the glories of 



88 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. V. 

the burning stake," like the martyrs in Queen Mary's reign, 
but only as felons, their sole felony being that they held and 
published what is now called Congregationalism. In En- 
gland, under Queen Elizabeth, Congregationalism was pun- 
ished as sedition.' 

The queen and her counselors judged rightly that the 
principles of the two books were dangerous to the notion of 
the royal supremacy in matters of religion, and to the sys- 
tem built upon that notion ; for, instead of proposing to 
amend the system here and there, in the Puritan fashion, and 
to bring the ecclesiastical establishment of the realm into a 
better shape, those new principles struck at the root of the 
tree. If such principles were to prevail — if a church were 
nothing else than a society of Christian disciples, separated 
from the world, and \voluntarily agreeing to govern them- 
selves by the law of Christ as given in the Holy Scriptures 
— if churches were to be instituted at Bury St. Edmund's, at 
Norwich, and at London, by the same right by which church- 
es were first instituted at Antioch, at Corinth, and at Rome — 
if England, with its hierarchy, were not a church at all, but 
only a kingdom in which Elizabeth was queen — the entire fab- 
ric of the National Church was in peril. For that reason it 
was that John Copping and Elias Thacker were so sternly dealt 
with. The purpose was to make an example which should 
deter all men from any thought of independent churches. 

Robert Browne was not a martyr. He was not of the stuft' 
that martyrs are made of. The passion that impelled him 
was the love of agitation. When that passion had partly 
spent itself, he did what mere agitators often do as they 
grow older — he turned conservative, and betrayed the cause 
for which he had contended. After about two years in Hol- 

' Strype, " Annals of the Reformation," iii., pt. i., 15-17, 186, 187; Brad- 
ford, in Young's "Chronicles of the Pilgrims," p. 427; Neal, i., 149-ir)4; Hop- 
kins, "Puritans and Queen Elizabeth," ii., 280-320. Neal calls these two mar- 
tyrs "ministers of the Brownist persuasion ;" but neither Strype nor Bradford 
speaks of them as ministers. 



A.D. 1584-1630.] EEFORilATION WITHOUT TARRYING. 89 

land, he passed over into Scotland (1584), his flock at Middle- 
burg having been broken up, as might have been expected in 
view of his imperious and impulsive temper. A pastor of such 
a temper may be a much better man than Browne was, and 
yet bring ruin upon a much stronger church than that little 
society of English exiles could have been. In Scotland, the 
agitator was as obnoxious to the Presbyterian establishment 
as he had been to Bishop Freke in his native country. The 
next year (1585) we find him in England again, presuming on 
the comparative immunity which he had by virtue of his high 
connection, and soon renewing his work of agitation. Five 
years after the martyrdom of Copping and Thacker he was 
vanquished by the civil disabilities consequent on a sentence 
of excommunication which had been pronounced against him 
in a bishop's court for the contempt of not appearing in an- 
swer to a citation. Thereupon he " submitted himself to 
the order and government established" in the Church of En- 
gland, and was restored to good standing, not only in the 
church, but in its priesthood. By the influence of his friends 
at court he obtained " means and help for some ecclesiastic- 
al preferment," and in a short time after his submission he 
received a benefice (1591). This does not imply that he re- 
canted his opinions, or made any profession of repentance for 
what he had done — it was enough that he submitted. He had 
not even the desperate self-respect which prompted Judas to 
hang himself; but, like Benedict Arnold, he took care not to 
lose the poor reward of his baseness. He was the rector of 
a parish, and received his tithes ; but never preached. By 
his idle and dissolute life he disgraced his ministry ; but, in- 
asmuch as he could not be charged with nonconformity, he 
retained his living. The quarrelsome temper which had brok- 
en up his little church at Middleburg vented itself upon his 
wife in acts of cruelty, and they could not live together. In 
a quarrel with the constable of the parish, he took the re- 
sponsibility of beating that officer. Arraigned before a jus- 
tice for the unclerical offense, he used such violence of speech 



90 GEVESIS OP THE XEW EXGI_VX1> CHrKCHESw [CH. V. 

that he was sent to prison for contempt, and there he died at 
the age of eighty, a miserable and despised old man. but a 
beneficed minister of the Chorch of England, and in regular 
standing.'^ He died in the year 16-30, when the Separation 
which he deserted, and for which Thaeker and Copping suf- 
fered an ignominious death, had founded a Christian com- 
monwealth in Xew England, They died in their early man- 
hood ; he lived on, and ^ the days of his years^ by reason of 
strength, were tbursoore years :~ yet how much better and 
more blessed was it to die as they died, than to live as he 
lired! 

■ Fttflff. "Charefc Historr." t.. 60-70. 



A.D. 1593.] SEPABATISM BEFOKE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 91 



CHAPTER VI. 

SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSIONERS. 

It was not so easy as Elizabeth and her prelates had sup- 
posed to suppress the new theory of freedom in the church. 
The idea of " Reformation without tarrying for any," as it 
survived the hanging of its first confessors, survived also the 
treachery of their unworthy associate. Only ten years after 
that hanging there was a bill in Parliament (1593) for a new 
law against "the Brownists," so called though Browne Avas no 
longer one of them ; for some new securities were thought 
necessary against a party that was growing formidable. On 
that occasion, Sir Walter Raleigh, arguing against the bill 
— not that he cared for the Brownists, whom he pronounced 
" worthy to be rooted out of the commonwealth," but be- 
cause he valued those principles of English liberty Avhicli the 
bill proposed to sacrifice — made a significant statement : " I 
am afraid," said he, "there are near twenty thousand of them 
in England." Twenty thousand of them in England, only 
ten years after that hanging at Bury St. Edmund's ! 

Already the Separation was beginning to be spoken of 
among the people by another name than Browne's. Henry 
Barrowe, "a gentleman of a good house" in Xorfolk, and a 
graduate of the University of Cambridge, became, after leav- 
ing the university, a member of the legal profession in Lon- 
don, and " was sometime a frequenter of the court " of 
Queen Elizabeth. Governor Bradford has given us that ac- 
count of him which Avas current fifty years later among the 
Separatist founders of Plymouth, some of whom had been 
" well acquainted with those that knew him familiarly both 
before and after his conversion," and one of whom had re- 
ceived information from a servant of his who " tended upon 



92 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VI. 

him both before and sometime after" the great change in 
his life. 

" He was a gentleman of good worth, and a flourishing 
courtier in his time." " Walking in London one Lord's day 
with one of his companions, he heard a preacher at his ser- 
mon, very loud, as they passed by the church. 'Let us go in,' 
said he, ' and hear what this man saith that is thus earnest.' 
Moved by the sudden impulse, in he went and sat down. 
And the minister was vehement in reproving sin, and sharp- 
ly applied the judgments of God against the same ; and, it 
should seem, touched him to the quick in such things as he 
was guilty of, so as God set it home to his soul, and began 
to work for his repentance and conviction thereby. For he 
was so stricken as he could not be quiet, until by conference 
with godly men, and further hearing of the Avord, with dili- 
gent reading and meditation, God brought peace to his soul 
and conscience after much humiliation of heart and reforma- 
tion of life." In this process of reformation " he left the 
court and retired himself to a private life, sometime in the 
country and sometime in the cit3% giving himself to study 
and reading of the Scriptures and other good works very dil- 
igently ; and being missed at court by his consorts and ac- 
quaintance, it was quickly bruited abroad that Barrowe was 
turned Puritan."' Another account of his conversion, given 
by one who may have known him as a young man at court, 
is that he " made a leap from a vain and dissolute youth to 
a preciseness in the highest degree, the strangeness of which 
alteration made him very much spoken of." * 

Long afterward, the life which he lived in his youth was 
unkindly referred to as a disgrace to his memory. Enemies 
of the Separation reported that he " was a great gamester 
and a dicer when he lived in court ; and, getting much in 
play, would boast of loose spending it" — as if there were no 

' Bradford's "Dialogue," in " Chronicles of the Pilgrims," p. 433, 434. 
- Lord Bacon's Works (Philadelphia, 1842), ii., 249. 



A.D. 1583.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 93 

sucli thing as the true conversion of a sinner, or as if the 
conversion of Augustine from a wayward and vicious life to 
eminence among the saints were less marvelous or more mi- 
raculous than the conversion of that young man in the court 
of Queen Elizabeth. " That he was tainted with vices at 
the court before his conversion is not very strange," said 
Bradford ; " and if he had lived and died in that condition, it 
is like he might have gone out of the world without any pub- 
lic brand on his name, and have passed for a tolerable Chris- 
tian and member of the church." From the " vain and dis- 
solute" life of a courtier, he was strangely converted to a 
life of serious godliness. The fact was notorious at the time, 
as we know from indubitable testimony, 

"Barrowe is turned Puritan" was the story among the 
lawyers at Gray's Inn, and among gay courtiers. Any man 
who seemed in earnest to do the will of God, taking the Bi- 
ble for his guide, was in those days called a Puritan. But, 
as to the question of church reformation, this young man, no 
longer " vain and dissolute," did not rest in mere Puritanism. 
His inquiries soon brought him to the more advanced posi- 
tion of separation from all national churches. His connec- 
tions and the notoriety of his conversion, as well as his tal- 
ents and his zeal, made him conspicuous among the Sepa- 
ratists ; and soon the name "Barrowist" began to be used 
instead of "Brownist." 

The name of Henry Barrowe is inseparably associated in 
history with that of his friend and fellow-sufferer, John Green- 
wood. Of Greenwood we know that he had taken a degree 
at Cambridge, had received ordination from episcopal hands, 
had served as chaplain in the family of a Puritan nobleman 
(Lord Rich, of Rochford, in Essex), but had renounced all 
connection with the so-called Church of England, and, in co- 
operation with Barrowe, had made himself obnoxious to the 
ruling powers by his conspicuous activity among the Sepa- 
ratists. He was a young man — probably not thirty yeai'S of 
age — a husband, and the father of a young son, when we 



94 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VI. 

find him a prisoner in the Clink prison in Southwark. The 
date of his arrest and confinement does not appear. 

On a Lord's day in November (Nov. 19, 1586), six years and 
a half after Copping and Thacker had been put to death for 
maintaining that Christians in England ought to unite in sepa- 
rate and voluntary churches, according to the New Testament, 
Henry Barrowe, having heard that his friend Greenwood was 
in pi-ison, made haste to visit him. The keeper of the prison 
took the opportunity of detaining Barrowe without a war- 
rant, and hurried to Archbishop Whitgift, at Lambeth, with 
the news of the capture. On his return with two of the 
archbishop's ofiicers, the captive was conveyed by water to 
the Lambeth Palace, and underwent an examination before 
Whitgift and two others of the High Commission ; for the 
business, being ecclesiastical, was not thought inappropriate 
to the Lord's day. 

The examination was far from satisfactory to the examin- 
ers, as will appear from some passages which show striking- 
ly what the man was, and what were his principles. 

At the beginning, Barrowe found opportunity to allege 
that his imprisonment by the keeper of the prison, without 
warrant, was contrary to the law of the land. He was ask- 
ed, " Know you the law of the land ?" " Very little," he re- 
plied ; " yet I was of Gray's Inn some years." When the 
archbishop and the two doctors derided his unskillfulness in 
the law (it being to them ludicrous that an English subject 
should complain of being shut up in prison without a war- 
rant from a magistrate), he added, "I look for little help by 
law against you." 

The archbishop, proposing that, according to the usage of 
the High Commission, he should be sworn to answer what- 
ever questions might be put to him, asked him, " Will you 
swear ?" He answered, " I hold it lawful to swear, if it be 
done with due order and circumstances." " Reach a book," 
said the archbishop, " and hold it him." With a provoking 
simplicity, the prisoner ask^d, " What shall I do with it ?" 



A.D. 1586,] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 95 

"Lay youi- hand upon it, man," said Whitgift. "For what 
purpose," said Barrowe, asking as if he did not kno\v\ "To 
swear," said Wliitgift. " I use to swear by no hooks," was 
the grave and resolute reply. Whitgift explained: "You 
shall not swear by the book, but by God only," " So I pur- 
pose when I swear," was the answer. One of the two doc- 
tors, Cosins, interposed to inform the prisoner that, if he were 
a witness in a cause before a secular court, and should re- 
fuse to lay his hand on a book and swear, his testimony 
would not be taken ; and thereupon the archbishop added, 
" Why, man, the book is no part of the oath : it is but a cer- 
emony." "A needless and wicked ceremony," said the fear- 
less respondent. Being reminded that the book in question 
was the Bible, the firm Separatist answered, "I will swear 
by no Bible." Cosins cried out, " Schismatics are always 
clamorous." " True," said Whitgift ; " such were the Dona- 
tists of old ; and such art thou, and all other schismatics 
such as thou art," Unabashed by their vituperation, Barrowe 
replied, " Say your pleasure, God forgive you. I am neither 
schismatic nor clamorous, I only answer your demands. If 
you will, I will be silent." Then followed more altercation 
about the book-oath, he maintaining that he would "join no 
creatures to the name of God in an oath ;" and that if it 
were, as they alleged, " only a custom commanded by law," 
"the law ought not to cotnmand a wicked custom." At 
last, "the archbishop commanded Dr. Cosins to record 'that 
Mr. Barrowe refused to swear upon a book.'" 

Finding that they could not induce him to take the oath, 
the commissioners proceeded to interrogate him without 
that formality; but his answers, though prompt and per- 
emptory, were little else than a continued refusal to become 
his own accuser — although the archbishop threatened him 
with the deadly peril of a trial for heresy, which, if he were 
found guilty, would consign him to the fire. When they 
proposed to him that he should find security for his good 
behavior, he professed his readiness to do so in any amount 



96 GE>fESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. VI. 

they might require ; but when the explanation was given 
that he would be bound to frequent the churches of the es- 
tablishment, he replied, " Xow that I know your mind, I will 
enter into no such bond." The end was that he was sent to 
the Gate-house prison. 

On Monday of the following M-eek (Nov. 27), he Avas 
brought again before the High Commission at Lambeth Pal- 
ace, the Bishop of London (Aylmer) and the Dean of St. 
Paul's being present with the archbishop. Again he refused 
the oath. He would not be sworn to answer questions de- 
signed to make him give testimony against himself An 
informal paper was read containing certain things which he 
was reported to have said concerning the Church of En- 
gland ; but he persisted in his refusal. " There is much more 
cause," said he, "to swear mine accuser; I will not swear." 
" Where," cried the angry archbishop, " is his keeper ? You 
shall not prattle here. Away with him. Clap him up close, 
close. Let no man come to him. I will make him tell another 
tale, ere I have done with him." 

Of course Barrowe was immediately conveyed back to his 
prison. There he remained, " clapped up close," to meditate 
on the liberty of an Englishman and the theory of the 
Church of Christ. After four months (1587, March 24), he 
was brought up for a new examination before a more impos- 
ing array of the High Commission. There were present, not 
only the archbishop and the Bishops of London and Win- 
chester, but also " the two lord chief justices, the lord chief 
baron, and many others." Again there was the difficulty 
about the oath. The prisoner would not swear by any 
books or Bibles, but only by " the Eternal God himself" He 
would not swear to be his own accuser. He would take no 
oath but with " great regard and reverence," and " for con- 
firmation " of his testimony if it were contradicted by some 
false witness. "By God's grace," said he, "I will answer 
nothing but the truth." At last the archbishop, remember- 
inof that " a Christian man's word ought to be as true as his 



A.D. 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 97 

oath," gave up the conflict, and proceeded to interrogate the 
Christian man before him. The questions proposed to the 
prisoner were designed to draw out from him the opinions 
of which he was suspected, and which were, in the judgment 
of the inquisitors, dangerous to the church and realm of En- 
gland. His direct and fearless answers to the several " arti- 
cles of inquiry," show clearly enough what the controversy 
was between him and the church of Queen Elizabeth, and 
what the crimes were of which Barrowe and the so-called 
Barrowists were guilty. 

1. " In my opinion, the Lord's Prayer is rather a summary 
than an enjoined form, and, not finding it used by the apos- 
tles, I think it may not be constantly used." 

2. "In the word of God, I find no authority given to any 
man to impose liturgies or forms of prayer upon the church ; 
and it is therefore high presumption to impose them." 

3. '^In my opinion, the Common Prayer" — the form of 
worship actually imposed in England — " is idolatrous, super- 
stitious, and popish." 

4. "The sacraments of the Church of England, as they are 
publicly administered, are not true sacraments." 

5. "As the decrees and canons of the church are so numer- 
ous, I can not judge of all; but many of them, and the ec- 
clesiastical courts and governors, are unlawful and antichris- 
tian." 

6. "Such as have been baptized in the Church of England 
are not baptized according to the institution of Christ; yet 
they may not need to be baptized again." 

7. "The Church of England, as it is now formed, is not 
the true church of Christ ; yet there are many excellent 
Christians in it." 

8. " The queen is supreme governor of the whole land, and 
over the church, bodies and goods ; but may not make any 
other laws for the church of Christ than He hath left in his 
word." 

9. "I can not see it lawful for any one to alter the least 

G 



98 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. VI. 

part of the judicial law of Moses without doing injury to the 
moral law, and opposing the will of God." 

10. The question being, whether a private person may re- 
form the church if the prince neglect it : " No private per- 
sons may reform the state ; but they ought to abstain from 
all unlawful things commanded by the prince." 

11. "The government of the church of Christ belongeth 
not to the ungodly, but every particular church ought to 
have an eldership." 

Nothing was more evident to Whitgift and his fellow-in- 
quisitors than that such opinions ought not to be tolerated 
under a Christian government, and that there would be dan- 
ger to the realm of England if a man conscientious and cour- 
ageous enough to confess that he held them should be per- 
mitted to go at large. So Barrowe was clapped up again — 
" close, close " — none being allowed to visit him ; and 
" though he earnestly requested a copy of his answers, the 
favor could not be obtained." 

After another period of almost three months, he was again 
brought before the High Commission (June 18, 1587); pres- 
ent, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor Hat- 
ton, the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, Lord Buckhurst, the Bishop 
of London, Justice Young, Dr. Some, and others. Burleigh 
began the examination ; and, after the first question and an- 
swer, it proceeded in this fashion: "Why will you not come 
to church?" "My whole desire is to come to the church 
of God." "I see thou art a fantastical fellow; but why not 
come to our churches?" "My lord, the causes are great 
and many : as,^first, because all the wicked in the land ai e re- 
ceived unto the communion ; secondli/^ you have a false and 
an antichristian ministry set over your church ; thirdly^ you 
do not worship God aright, but in an idolatrous and super- 
stitious manner; iin^, fourthly, your church is not governed 
by the Testament of Christ, but by tlie Romish courts and 
canons." "Here is matter enough, indeed. I perceive thou 
takest delio;ht to be an author of this new relio-ion." 



A.D. 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 99 

Matter enougb-no doubt! Hatton, tbe lord chancellor, 
was moved to betray his ignorance of religious questions 
and his contemptuous inditierence : "I never heard such 

stuff in all my life." 

Bishop Aylmer, at that exclamation, thought it was time 
for him to give a helping hand. He interposed with ques- 
tions about the Book of Common Prayer; and, bemg un- 
wary enough to reply as well as to ask questions, he denied 
that his church gave any part of God's worship to any creat- 
ure. Barrowe's answer was, " Yes, you celebrate a day and 
sanctify an eve, and call them by the names of saints ; and 
thus you. make a feast, and devise a worship unto them." 

Martinmas, then, and Michaelmas, and all the rest of the 
saints' days, must be wiped out of the calendar. Burleigh 
resumed his questioning. "Why may we not call the days 
by their names? Is not this in our liberty?" "No, my 
lord." "How do you prove that ?" " In the beginnmg ot 
the Bible it is written that God himself named all the days, 
the first, the second, etc." "Then we may not call them 
Sunday, Monday, etc. ?" " We are otherwise taught to call 
them in the word of God." " Why, thou thyself callest Sun- 
day the Lord's day." " And so the Holy Ghost calleth it m 
the first of Revelation." 

The grave lord treasurer paused, and Aylmer, eager to 
defend tlie church, which had done so much for him, resumed. 
"We have nothing in our saints' days but what is taken forth 
of the Scriptures." "In that you say true; for you find no 
saints' days in the Scriptures." " We find their histories and 
deeds in the Scripture." " But not their days and festivals." 
" He is a proud spirit," said Lord Buckhurst. " He has a 
hot brain," said Lord Burleigh, and proceeded to draw forth 
from that hot brain more objections to the mode of worship 
established by law and imposed inexorably on all Englishmen. 
The stream of talk flowed on till Buckhurst cried out again, 
" He is out of his wits !" 

Barrowe, who probably remembered, better than his lord- 



100 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH, VI, 

ship, what Festus on a similar occasion said to Paul, replied, 
" No, my lord, I speak the words of truth and soberness, as I 
could make appear, if I might be suifered." 

Without seeming to notice the interruption, Lord Burleigh 
went on in his serious way, and drew from the prisoner a 
frank acknowledgment that we ought to pray that our lives 
may be such as the lives of the saints were. The acknowl- 
edgment was followed up and explained by a protest against 
being " tied to days and times," and against being "restrained 
or stinted in our prayers, as to time, place, manner, kneeling, 
standing, etc. ;" at which Lord Buckhurst exclaimed, " This 
fellow delighteth to hear himself talk." Whereupon Whit- 
gift, silent thus far, began to show his mind and temper. 
"He is a sower of errors," said the archbishop; "and there- 
fore I committed him." 

The undaunted Separatist replied to the Primate of all 
England, " You, indeed, committed me half a year close pris- 
oner in the Gate-house, and I never until now understood the 
cause ; neither do I yet know what errors they are. Show 
them, therefore, I pray you." 

"He has a presumptuous spirit," said Buckhurst. "My 
lord," said Barrowe, " all spirits must be tried and judged by 
the word of God. But if I err, it is meet I should be shown 
wherein." Doubtless they all felt that in regard to the mat- 
ters of controversy between the queen's church and the Sep- 
aratists, it would not be easy to shew that man, so that he 
should see, wherein he had erred. After, perhaps, a moment's 
pause, the Lord Chancellor Hatton said, "There must be 
stricter laws made for such fellows." 

At the suggestion of " stricter laws for such fellows," the 
spirit that can mount the scaffold or march to the stake 
rather than deny a persecuted truth, uttered itself in the 
words, " Would God there were, my lord ! Our journey 
would then be the shorter." 

Things w^ere taking a very serious aspect. We may sup- 
pose that even the frivolous Hatton was touched by that 



A.D. 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH OOMMISSIOX 101 

last answer, and was beginning to have some vague feeling of 
how much deeper than his thoughts about religion had ever 
gone, must that conviction be which would not be surren- 
dered even if "stricter laws" were made against it. Law 
had made him a Protestant, and if it should change, it might 
make him a Papist again, or a Presbyterian, or a Pagan. 
What sort of a man, then, was this prisoner whose journey 
would only be the shorter if a little more stringency in the 
laws should require him, under penalty of death, to surrender 
his convictions concerning the church of Christ and the wor- 
ship of God. 

Burleigh resumed the examination, and, like a man accus- 
tomed to deal with concrete and practical questions, he said 
to the prisoner, "You complained to us of injustice. Where- 
in have you suifered wrong?" "By being imprisoned, my 
lord, without trial," was the answer. How can this be? was 
Burleigh's instant thought. "You said [at the beginning of 
your examination] you were condemned upon the statute 
[against recusants]." Yet Barrowe had not contradicted him- 
self; he had been examined and imprisoned by the archbishop, 
but not tried ; and they all so understood him when, without 
any explanation, he replied, "Unjustly, my lord. That statute 
was not made for us." He was right, and they knew it. 
The Parliament that enacted that law — unjust and unwise — 
against Roman Catholics, did not intend that it should be 
an engine of persecution against any true Protestant. 

Then said Burleigh, " There must be stricter laws made for 
you." " Oh, my lord !" was the reply, " speak more comfort- 
ably. We have sorrows enough." In his response to Hat- 
ton's threat of " stricter laws," the prisoner, without breach 
of courtesy, had answered a fool according to his folly; but 
in giving this reply to a similar intimation from Burleigh, 
he was, appealing to a man of larger and more generous 
nature. 

After a few words more about the injustice complained of, 
his lordship asked, "Have you not had a conference ?" There- 



102 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VI. 

upon Bishop Aylmer, without waiting for the prisoner to an- 
swer that question, said, "Several have been with them, whom 
they mocked." Barrowe, having small respect for bishops, 
contradicted him. " We have mocked no man. Miserable 
physicians are you all. We desired a public conference, that 
all might know our opinions and wherein we en*." 

A public conference ! As if it were not the chief end of the 
High Commission to suppress all public discussion of such 
themes as these ! Whitgift was roused by the suggestion. 
"You shall have no such conference. You have published 
too much already ; and therefore I committed you to prison." 
" But contrary to law," insisted the prisoner. The lord 
treasurer interposed again, " On such occasions it may be 
done by law. Have you any learning?" Obviously, the 
question referred to Barrowe's professional studies ; and he 
replied, modestly, " The Lord knoweth I am ignorant. I have 
no learning to boast of But" — turning to the archbishop — 
"this I know, that you are void of all true learning and god- 
liness." ^ " See the spirit of this man," cried Buckhurst. Whit- 
gift, out of temper with a prisoner who had charged him to 
his face with lack of true learning and godliness, renewed the 
threat Avith which he had attempted to terrify the same man 
seven months before : " I have matter to call you before me 
as a heretic." That threat meant more than continued im- 
prisonment, more than fines, however exorbitant, more than 
the gallows: it meant the stake, the iron chain, the lieap of 
fagots, and the fire. Again the stubborn Separatist replied, 
''That you shall never do. You know my former judgment 
in that matter. Err I may ; but heretic, by the grace of God, 
I will never be." Such a reply was, in reality, almost a chal- 
lenge — as if he had said. Prove me a heretic if you can. 

Burleigh turned the conversation to another topic. "Do 

' The last sentence of this answer is inconsistent with the respectful tone 
of all that the prisoner said to Burleigh and to the other lay lords in that 
examination ; but it is entirely consistent with the style of his replies to the 
two prelates. 



A.D, 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSIOJf. 103 

you not hold that it is unlawful to enact a law for ministers 
to live by tithes, and that the people he required to pay 
them ?" The answers to that and other questions propound- 
ed an extremely radical doctrine — the identical doctrine with 
which Wickliffe had terrified the clergy so long ago. Min- 
isters of the Gospel — in Barrowe's theory of the relations be- 
tween church and state — should be supported not by tithes, 
nor by any other assessments on the people at large, but 
wholly by the voluntary contributions of those to whom they 
minister. The text was quoted, " Let him that is taught in 
the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good 
things" — a rule very different from the law of tithes. 
"Wouldst thou, then," said Burleigh, "have the minister to 
have all my goods?" "No, my lord ; but I would not have 
you withhold your goods from helping him : neither rich nor 
poor are exempted from this duty." 

The lord treasurer's religion was not much infected with 
sacerdotalism. For some reason, he threw out a remai'k 
more Protestant than the theory which the bishops were up- 
holding in the Church of England : " Ministers are not now 
called priests." " If they receive tithes, they are priests," 
was the prom23t reply; "they" — who receive tithes — "are 
called priests in the law." Pedantic Aylmer, not relishing 
the intimation that Christian ministers are not priests, and 
fearing what might come of it, thought that the argument 
for tithes might be helped by suggesting the etymology 
and origin of the English word priest. "What is a presby- 
ter, I pray thee?" "An elder." "What, in age only?" 
" No : Timothy was a young man." " Presbyter," said the 
Bishop of London — who had been tutor to Lady Jane Grey, 
and had made her famously learned in Latin and Greek — 
"Presbyter is Latin for priest." "It is no Latin word," said 
the prisoner, " but is derived from the Greek, and signifieth 
the same as the Greek word, which is elder." As if impelled 
to expose more completely the weakness of the argument 
which he was trying to suggest, the bishop asked one question 



104 GKNESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES, [CH. VI. 

more: "What, then, dost thou make a priest?" The answer 
was obvious, " One that offereth sacrifices ; for so it is al- 
ways used in the law." 

The High Commissioners present in that court could not 
but observe the courtesy whicli characterized the prisoner's 
answers, bold as they were, to the lord treasurer, the lord 
chancellor, and the queen's kinsman, Lord Buckhurst ; nor 
could they help seeing that all customary terms of reverence 
toward the highest dignitaries of the Church were Avanting 
when he addressed the Bishop of London or the Archbishop 
of Canterbury. As if he were a precursor of George Fox, he 
had not once said "My Lord" to Aylmer, nor "Your Grace" 
to Whitgift. Hatton, who was almost a Koman Catholic, 
but whose frivolous nature was incapable of any religious 
earnestness, had evidently been impressed with such a defect 
of courtliness on the part of one who was formerly a courtier. 
Either in the simplicity of his ignorance, or because he was 
willing to tease those prelates and to see them worried out 
of all self-command, he pointed at the bishop and archbishop, 
and said to the prisoner, "Do you not know these two men V" 
"Yes, my lord," was the answer; "I have cause to know 
them." The lord chancellor asked again, " Is not this the 
Bishop of London?" "I know him for no bishop, my lord." 
This was Barrowe's explanation. He could honor the nobles 
of England and the queen's officers representing her suprem- 
acy in the state ; but he would acknowledge no bishop Avho 
was not a bishop according to the New Testament. Hatton, 
not yet satisfied, persisted in his question, "What is he, then ?" 
The answer came at last: "His name is Aylmer, my lord. 
The Lord pardon my fault that I did not lay him open ^s a 
wolf, a bloody persecutor, and an apostate." So much for 
ray lord of London ; next for Whitgift, toward whom the 
merciless chancellor's finger was directed. " What is that 
man ?" In other words, What is the title which designates 
his rank and office? Thus challenged to declare his judg- 
ment concerning the functionary known as archbishop in an 



A.D. 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 105 

ecclesiastical establishment which was half Roman, and less 
than half Protestant, the fearless Separatist replied, "He is a 
monster, a miserable compound ; I know not what to make 
of him. He is neither ecclesiastical nor civil. He is that 
second beast spoken of in the Revelation" — which "exercisetli 
all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the 
earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, 
whose deadly wound was healed." 

Mischievously or earnestly, Burleigh seemed to be inter- 
ested in that matter. The question whether the prelacy in 
the English establishment was of God or only of men — 
whether bishop and archbishop derived their power from the 
"King of kings and Lord of lords" by apostolic succession, 
or from Queen P^lizabeth under the laws of England — had al- 
ready been urged on his attention ; and the manner in which 
that power was used by Whitgift had been the subject of 
a disagreeable correspondence, and almost of altercation, be- 
tween the primate and the premier. The statesmanship which 
was working Avith consummate skill to govern England, and 
which found nothing in its great task more difficult than to 
manage the queen and those obsequious creatures of her 
will, the bishops, had reasons of its own for saying of a func- 
tionary so composite and anomalous as an archbishop, "I 
know not what to make of him ;" and Burleigh, with all his 
gravity, could not but smile inwardly at the alleged resem- 
blance between that officer and " the second beast spoken of 
in Revelation." " Where is the place ?" said he ; " show it." 

My lord's Grace of Canterbury could endure this no longer. 
While the prisoner was turning the leaves to find the thir- 
teenth chapter of the Apocalypse, Whitgift rose from his 
seat, and, "gnashing his teeth," exclaimed, "Will you suffer 
him, my lords?" Thus the examination ended. "Then by 
the wardens Mr. Barrowe was immediately plucked from off" 
his knees and carried away." 

Greenwood underwent a similar examination, and gave a 
similar testimony. He refused to be sworn by or upon any 



106 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VI. 

book, though not refusing to swear by the name of God, " if 
there be any need." When the commissioners proceeded to 
interrogate him without an oath (for it seems to have been 
their opinion that an oath was of no account without a 
book), they found him not rehictant to tell what he believed, 
though protesting against the attempt " to bring him within 
the compass of their law by making him accuse himself" In 
reply to the question, "Are you a minister?" he said, "I was 
one, according to your orders," or ordination. Had he been 
degraded from the clerical order by due course of canon 
law ? No ; but, said he, " I degraded myself, through God's 
mercy, by repentance," They interrogated him on the law- 
fulness of using " any stinted forms of prayer in public or in 
private ;" on the Book of Common Prayer — whether it was 
contrary to the Scriptures, and whether it was " popish, su- 
perstitious, and idolatrous ;" on marriage — whether he had 
married "one Boraan and his wife" in the Fleet prison; on 
the Church of England, whether it was "a true established 
church of God" — whether, as governed by bishops, it was 
antichristian — whether the sacraments therein administered 
were true sacraments — whether the parish were the church — 
whether the church ought to be governed by a presbytery, 
and what the presbytery ought to be. They also touched 
the more radical topic of voluntary church reformation with- 
out tarrying for the prince, and whether the prince might 
be excommunicated by a voluntary church. Some of his an- 
swers may be given here, as showing not only the spirit of 
the man, but also the character of the movement in which he 
was a leader, and for which he was a witness. 

On the general question of " stinted forms of prayer," or 
liturgies prescribed and imposed by autliority, his testimony 
was, "It does not appear lawful to use stinted prayers, in- 
vented by men, either publicly or privately, from any thing 
I can see in the Scriptures." 

Respecting the Book of Common Prayer (after being as- 
sured by the lord chief justice, one of the commissioners, 



A.D. 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFORE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 107 

that he should have liberty to call back whatever statement 
he might afterward desire to revoke), he said, "I hold it is 
full of errors, and the form of it disagreeable to the Script- 
ures." 

In opposition to the notion which makes marriage a sacra- 
ment, and some priestly intervention essential to its sacred- 
ness, he denied that marriage is " any part of the minister's 
office." He held that the contract between the parties to be 
thenceforward husband and wife made them one under the 
law of God, and that their mutual consent, expressed before 
faithful witnesses — though in the case referred to he had of- 
fered prayer — needed no priest or minister to make it an in- 
dissoluble bond. 

When he was asked whether the Church of England — the 
institution represented before him at that moment by the 
High Commission Court — was "a true established church of 
God," he answered, "The Avhole commonwealth is not a 
church." When urged with the question in another form: 
"Do you know anytrue established church in the land?" he 
answered, "If I did, I would not accuse it unto yoiv" As 
governed by bishops, and by the laws then enforced, it was 
"contrary to Christ's word." 

Of the sacraments in the national establishment, he said, 
"They are not rightly administered, according to the insti- 
tution of Christ ; nor have thoy the promise of grace :" "If 
you have no true church, you can liave no true sacraments." 
Yet he held that there was no need of baptizing again those 
who had received baptism in the establishment. While he 
was " no Anabaptist," " differing fi'om them as far as truth 
is from error," his own boy, a year and a half old, had received 
the name Abel without its being given to him in bajitism ; 
"because," said the father, "I have been in prison, and can 
not tell where to go to a reformed church, where I might 
have him baptized according to God's ordinance." 

To the question, " Do you not hold a parish to be the 
church ?" he answered, " If all the people were faithful, hav- 



108 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.VI. 

ing God's law and ordinances practiced among them, I do." 
A church would then be constituted by "the jDrofession which 
the people make ;" and, as for its government, " every con- 
gregation of Christ ought to be governed by that presby- 
tery which Christ hath appointed." To him the presbytery 
which Christ hath appointed was not the Genevan or classic- 
al presbytery Avhich the Puritans would introduce in place 
of the existing establishment, but a congregational presby- 
tery — the " pastor, teacher, and elder" in each congregation 
of Christ. The church thus constituted," people and presby- 
tery," would be Christ's church, and ought to practice God's 
laws, and " correct vice by the censure of the word." But 
" what if the in-'mce forbid them ?" Then " they must, never- 
theless, do that Avhich God commandeth.''^ 

That phrase, " the censure of the word," pointed toward ex- 
communication. Queen Elizabeth had been excommunicated 
by the pope ; might not this church government according 
to the New Testament do the same thing ? In reference to 
the presbyterial government which the Puritans were en- 
deavoring to establish, this was a very grave question ; for, 
under that system, the queen, instead of being by virtue of 
her own crown and her baptism the supreme governor of 
the Church of England, would be a simi^le member of the 
church, on the same level with every other baptized English- 
woman. The crucifix in her private chapel might be com- 
plained of to the session or consistory of the parish. As a 
woman, she could sustain no ecclesiastical office, not even 
that of lay elder. She might be excommunicated by the con- 
sistory, and her appeals to presbytery, synod, and general 
assembly might be in vain. "If the prince offend," said the 
examiners to Greenwood, " may the presbytery excommuni- 
cate him?" His answer was, "The Avhole church — not the 
elders — may excommunicate any member of that church, if 
the party continue obstinate in open transgression." Even 
if the prince should have become, by free consent and mutual 
covenant, a member of that church, "there is no exception of 



A.D, 1587.] SEPARATISM BEFOKE THE HIGH COMMISSION. 109 

persons." If our queen should become a voluntary mem- 
ber of that voluntary church, " I doubt not her majesty would 
be ruled by the word."' 

The queen's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters would 
vanish, and no place be found for it. Each congregation of 
worshipers freely consenting to be ruled by the word of God 
would be self-governed under Christ ; for " the Scripture hath 
set down sufficient laws for the worship of God and the gov- 
ernment of the church, so that no man may add unto it nor 
diminish from it." The queen " is supreme magistrate over 
all persons, to punish the evil and defend the good;" but 
" Christ is the only head of his church, and his laws may no 
man alter." 

Having given this testimony, the confessor was sent back 
to the prison. 

' Brook, "Lives of the Puritans," ii., 24-28. The stoiy of Barrowe and 
Greenwood before the High Commissioners is told briefly by Neal, i., 201, 
202, and more at length by Hopkins, iii., 4G0-4G9. 



110 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH.VII. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONTROVEEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES. NATIONALISM, CONFORM- 
IST AND PURITAN, AGAINST SEPARATISM. 

Had not John Banyan been shut up to dream in Bedford 
jail, he would never have found time to write the "Pilgrim's 
Progress." His influence would have been limited and tran- 
sient in comparison with what it has been for two hundred 
years, and will be for centuries of years to come. Witnesses 
for liberty and truth may be imprisoned ; but ideas that 
have life in them find wings and fly abroad. The word of 
God is not bound. 

It does not appear that Barrowe or Greenwood had writ- 
ten any thing for publication before Archbishop Whitgift 
took them under his tutelage, and set them to study in prison 
the argument for a National Church, governed by the queen 
through her bishops and her High Commission. In due time 
the fruit of those studies began to appear. While the years 
of their imprisonment were passing, and while the published 
account of their bold answers at their several examinations 
was provoking inquiry and discussion in various places, Bar- 
royve — though often he could not "keep one sheet by him 
while writing another" — found means and opportunity for 
the writing of a book, sheet by sheet, which, notwithstanding 
the restrictions on the press, was printed in Holland, and be- 
gan to be circulated in England (1590). It was entitled 
"A Brief Discovery of the False Church," and was subscribed 
"by the Lord's most unworthy servant and witness, in bonds, 
Henry Barrowe." To intimate the relation between the 
new establishment and the old, it bore upon its title - page 
the motto (from Ezekiel xvi., 44) : " As the mother, such the 



A.D. 1590.] CONTEOVERSY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. Ill 

daughter is." ' While it exposed in the most unsparing fash- 
ion whatever Puritanism had found fault with in the es- 
tablished government and imposed liturgy of the National 
Church, it went farther and deeper; and — more explicitly, 
perhaps, than ever Robert Browne had done — it assailed the 
foundation-principle of every national church, however con- 
formed to the Puritan ideal. 

The author of that book was aware of the peril to which 
he was exposing himself " The shipmasters," said he, " the 
mariners, merchantmen, and all the people that reign, row, 
and are carried in this false church, will never endure to see 
fire cast into her — they will never endure to suffer loss of 
their dainty and precious merchandize; but, rather, will raise 
up no small tumults and stirs against the servants of God, 
seeking their blood by all subtle and violent means, as we 
read in the Scriptures their predecessors have always done — 
accusing them of treason, of troubling the state, schism, her- 
esy, and what not. But unto all the power, learning, deceit, 
rage of the false church, we oppose that little book of God's 
word, which, as the light, shall reveal her — as the fire, con- 
sume her — as a heavy millstone, shall press her and all her 
children, lovers, partakers, and abettors, down to hell ; which 
book we willingly receive as the judge of all our controver- 
sies, knowing that all men shall one day, and that ere long, 
be judged by the same." 

Professing small respect for what Roman Catholic and An- 
glo-Catholic theologians call "the notes of the church,"'^ he 
proposes a more excellent way. " Let us, for the appeasing 

It was printed in quarto, pp. 263. See Hanbury, i., 39-47. 
^ " ' The time is short' to run the race of Christianity, even when we have 
entered on it : how necessary, then, is it that we should endeavor to find 
speedily, as well as certainly, the arena in which it is to be run. It is with 
such views that theologians in various ages have endeavored to lay down 
rules for the discrimination of Christ's church by a comparatively short and 
intelligible process, and these rules are styled notes or signs of the church." — 
Palmer, " Treatise on the Church" (New York, 1841), i., 45. 



112 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VII. 

and assurance of our consciences, give heed to the word of 
God, and by that golden reed measure our temple, our altar, 
and our worshipers ; even by these rules whereby the apos- 
tles — those excellent, perfect workmen — planted and built 
the first churches." 

The issue between the theory of the ecclesiastical estab- 
lishment and that of the Separation, or between Nationalism 
and Congregationalism, was clearly stated. Nationalism rests 
on "this doctrine,' That a Christian prince which publisheth 
and maintaineth the Gospel, doth forthwith make all that 
realm (which with open force resisteth not his proceedings) 
to be held a church, to Avhom a holy ministry and sacraments 
belong, without further and more particular and personal 
trial, examination, and confession.' " In other words, if the 
sovereign be Christian, the nation is a church, and all sub- 
jects not in arms against the Christian sovereign are church 
members. "This doctrine," said the author, "we find, by the 
word of God, to be most false, corrupt, unclean, dangerous, 
and pernicious doctrine ; contrary to the whole cause, prac- 
tice, and laws, both of the Old and New Testament ; break- 
ing at once all Christian order, corrupting and poisoning all 
Christian communion and fellowship, and sacrilegiously pro- 
faning the holy things of God." Such being the fundamen- 
tal assumption on which a national church is constituted 
and governed by national authority, there are good reasons 
for a vehement rejection of it. " First, we know that no 
prince, or mortal man, can make any a member of the church. 
Princes may, by their godly government, greatly help and 
further the church, greatly comfort the faithful, and advance 
the Gospel ; but to choose or refuse, to call or harden, that 
the Eternal and Almighty Ruler of heaven and earth keep- 
eth in his own hands, and giveth not this power unto any 
other. This also we know^, that whom the Lord hath before 
all worlds chosen, them he will, in his due time and means, 
call by his word ; and whom he calleth, them he sealeth with 
his seal to depart from iniquity, to believe and lay hold of 



A,D. 1590.] CONTROVERSY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 113 

Christ Jesus as theii* alone Saviour — to honor and obey him 
as their anointed king, priest, and prophet — to submit them- 
selves unto him in all things — to be reformed, corrected, 
governed, and directed by his most holy word, vowing their 
faithful obedience unto the same as it shall be revealed unto 
them. By this faith, confession, and profession, every mem- 
ber of Christ, from the greatest unto the least, without re- 
spect of persons, entereth into and standeth in the church. 
In this faith have all the faithful congregations in the world, 
and true members of the same body, fellowship each with 
other; and out of this faith have the true servants of God 
no fellowship, no communion with any congregation or mem- 
ber, how flourishing titles or fair shows soever they make 
here in the flesh." 

What theologians have called the doctrine of particular elec- 
tion — in other words, the doctrine that God, in saving men 
through Christ, deals not with generic human nature only, nor 
with nations only, but with the individual souls, one by one, 
whom he chooses, whom he calls, whom he sanctifies — was in- 
corporated into the conception of the true church in Barrowe's 
"Discovery of the False Church." The individuality of human 
souls in the presence of God is their individual responsibility. 
Responsible each for others by reason of those mutual rela- 
tions and reciprocal duties and influences which constitute 
society, all human souls are individually responsible to God. 
"Now, then, seeing every member hath interest in the pub- 
lic actions of the church, and [all] together shall bear blame 
for the defaults of the same ; and seeing all our communion 
must be in the truth, and that we are not to be drawn by 
any into any willing or known transgressions of God's law, 
who can deny but every particular member hath power, yea, 
and ought to examine the manner of administering the sac- 
raments, as also the estate, disorder, or transgressions of the 
whole church ; yea, and not to join in any known transgres- 
sion with them, but rather to call them all to repentance," 
and even " to leave their fellowship i-ather than to partake in 

H 



114 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHTJRCHEr [CH. VII. 

their wickedness." It seems to have been a saying in those 
clays, by way of apology for not separating from an ecclesi- 
astical establishment that would not be reformed, "Every 
man eateth to his own salvation or damnation ; therefore the 
open sins of minister or people do neither hurt the sacra- 
ments there administered nor the godly conscience of the re- 
ceivers." The Separatist's answer was, "What sense or se- 
quel is in these reasons'? What can be devised more false 
or foolish ? Because every one is to look to his own private 
estate, therefore no man may meddle with another man's, or 
with the public estate I Were he not as foolish that could 
be led or carried with these reasons, as they that made 
them ?" 

Some descrijjtion of the true church was necessary to any 
full exposure of the false church. Is the spiritual common- 
wealth of Christ's disciples a hierarchy ? What offices of 
dignity and power does its constitution provide for or require? 
Barrowe's positive doctrine on that point is very simple : 
"The ministry appointed unto the government and service 
of the church of Christ we find to be of two sorts, elders and 
deacons — the elders, some of them to give attendance unto 
the public ministry of the word and sacraments, as the pas- 
tor and teacher; the other elders, together with them, to give 
attendance to the public order and government of the church 
— the deacons to attend the gathering and distributing the 
goods of the church." 

The Book of Common Prayer, imposed on all Englishmen 
with its ceremonial uniformity, as the only mode of worship, 
was the first occasion of Protestant opposition to the ecclesias- 
tical establishment, and of a demand for more thorough refor- 
mation. The more rigorously the vestments and ceremonies 
supposed to be " popish" were enforced upon scrupulous con- 
sciences, the more numerous and the more obstinate were the 
scruples of Nonconformists. Yet the Puritans, generally, de- 
manded only a reformation of the prescribed forms of worship. 
Some of them might have been satisfied with a few changes. 



A.D. 1590.] CONTROVEESY UNDER DIEFICULTIES. 115 

Others would have accepted no liturgy less Protestant in form 
or spirit than that which Calvin introduced in Geneva, and 
which had been adopted with only slight changes in the Re- 
formed churches of Scotland and of the Continent. But the 
Separatists, as the examinations of Barrowe and Greenwood 
have shown us, had taken a more advanced position in the 
controversy about the Book of Common Prayer, So radical 
was their doctrine, that to them any possible form of prayer, 
prescribed by whatever authority, and imposed upon Christ's 
churches as a substitute for free and spiritual worship, was 
like the interposition of a visible image between the wor- 
shiper and God. The discoverer of the false church liad no 
lack of objections against particular things in the queen's 
prayer-book, nor was he careful to measure the language in 
which he stated his objections. In some passages the coarse- 
ness of his vituperation, though less offensive to English ears 
in the reign of Elizabeth than it would be if used in the reign 
of Victoria, is such as can not be justified, even if it should 
be paralleled with quotations from Luther, who was some- 
times more vehement than anj^ Hebrew prophet. But the 
stress of his argument against the English liturgy was not 
so much against the contents of it — " abstracted out of the 
pope's blasphemous mass-book" — "old rotten stuff," reeking 
with odors of decay — as against the principle of prescribed 
and imposed forms of worship. 

"This book," said he, " in that it standeth a public prescript 
continued liturgy" — "if it were the best that ever was de- 
vised by mortal man, yet, in this place and use (being brought 
into the church, yea, or into any private house), becometh a 
detestable idol, standing for that it is not in the church of 
God and consciences of men, namely, for holy, spiritual, and 
faithful prayer," Nay, being not prayer, but a form sub- 
stituted for the spirit of prayer, it is " an abominable and 
loathsome sacrifice in the sight of God, even as a dead dog, 
N"ow, under the law , . , every sacrifice must be brought quick 
and new unto the altar, and there be slain morning and even- 



116 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. Vll. 

ing: how much more iu this spiritual temple of God, where 
the offerings are spiritual, and God hath made all his servants 
kings and priests to offer up acceptable sacrifices unto him 
through Jesus Christ, who hath thereunto given them his 
Holy Spirit into their hearts, to help their infirmities and 
teach them to say, Abba, Father ! How much more hath he 
who ascended given graces unto those his servants whom he 
useth in such high places to the repairing of the saints, the 
work of the ministry, and the edification of the church ! God 
useth them as his mouth unto the church ; the church again, 
on the other side, useth them as their mouth unto the Lord, 
Shall we think that God hath any time left these his serv- 
ants so singly furnished and destitute of his grace that they 
can not find words according to their necessities and faith to 
express their wants and desires, but need thus be taught line 
unto line, as children new weaned from the breasts, what and 
when to say, how much to say, and when to make an end ?" 
" Prayer I take to be a confident demanding, which faith 
maketh through the Holy Ghost, according to the will of 
God, for their present wants and estate. How can any pre- 
script stinted liturgy which was penned many years or days 
before be called a pouring forth of the heart unto the Lord, 
or those faithful requests which are stirred up in them by 
the Holy Ghost according to their present wants and the 
present estate of their hearts or church?" "Is not this" — 
this imposing of prescribed forms of prayer upon the churches 
— " presumptuously to undertake to teach the Spirit of God, 
and to take away his ofiice, who, as hath been said, instruct- 
eth all the children of God to pray, even with inward sighs 
and groans inexpressible, and giveth both words and utter- 
ance?" "Is not this, if they will have their written stuff to 
be held and used as prayer, to bind the Holy Ghost to the 
froth and leaven of their lips as it were to the holy word of 
God? Is it not utterly to quench and extinguish the Spirit 
of God both in the ministry and people, while they tie both 
them and God to their stinted, numbered prayers ?" 



A.D. 1590.] CONTROVERSY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 117 

All this is significant as to the divergence of Separatism 
from Puritanism. But much more significant are the pas- 
sages in which the author exposed the attempt of certain 
Puritan clergymen to institute and carry on a presbyterial 
government in the National Church. Such an attempt, hav- 
ing been commenced many years before, was still in progress. 
Several presbyteries or classes had been organized, meeting 
secretly, and vainly endeavoring to administer a reformed 
discipline, which, till a reforming sovereign, or at least a re- 
forming Parliament, should arise, might in some degree sup- 
ply the lack of really evangelical discipline in the ecclesias- 
tical establishment of the kingdom. The severity of lan- 
guage with which Barrowe described that scheme and its 
authors is worthy of notice: 

" Let me, in a word or two, give you warning of the other 
sort of enemies of Christ's kingdom — the Pharisees of these 
times. I mean your great learned preachers, your good 
men that sigh and groan for ' reformation,' but their hands, 
with the sluggard, deny to work. These counterfeits would 
raise up a second error, even as a second ' beast,' ' by so much 
more dangerous, by how much it hath more show of the 
truth. These men, instead of this gross antichristian gov- 
ernment which is now manifest and odious unto all men, would 
bring in a new adulterate forged government in show (or 
rather in despite) of Christ's government." "They, in their 
pride, rashness, ignorance, and sensuality of their fleshly 
hearts, most miserably innovate and corrupt" Christ's gov- 
ernment over his churches. 



1 See ante, p. 105. The figure of that " second beast," which, though "he 
had two horns like a lamb, " nevertheless "spake as a dragon, " which "ex- 
erciseth all the power of the first beast," which "deceiveth them that dwell 
on the earth," and " causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free 
and bond, to receive a mark," so that "no man might buy or sell save he 
that had the mark" — seems to have been, with Barrowe, a favorite illustra- 
tion of what a state church, pretending to maintain a church government 
over all the subjects of the realm, must needs be. 



118 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VII. 

"The thing itself they innovate and corrupt, in that they 
add new devices of their own — as, their pastoral suspension 
from their sacraments, their set continued synods, their select 
classis of ministers, their settled supreme council." As yet 
their scheme of discipline existed only in the germ, for the 
only power which a Puritan minister in a Church of England 
parish had of inflicting any thing like a church censure was 
the power of privately admonishing and repelling from the 
Lord's table any gross offender. Out of this germ of " pas- 
toral suspension from their sacraments "they hoped the whole 
scheme of a presbyterial church government over the nation 
might, in due time, be developed. Barrowe and the Sepa- 
ratists, as they compared that scheme with the model which 
they found in the New Testament, were of the opinion which 
Milton, himself a Separatist, afterward expressed — 

"New 'presbyter' is but old 'priest' writ large." 

No man who had dared to withdraw from the National 
Church, and to denounce the idea of it as essentially anti- 
christian, could be expected to speak very respectfully of the 
timid and stealthy manner in which those non-separating re- 
formers were proceeding. Barrowe did not disguise his con- 
tempt of " the weak and fearful practice of some of their for- 
ward men, who, that they might make a fair show among 
their rude, ignorant parishioners, set up, instead of Christ's 
government, their counterfeit 'discipline' in and over all the 
parish, making the popish churchwardens and perjured quest- 
men elders. And for Mr. Parson himself, he takes unto him 
the instrument of that 'foolish shepherd' [Zech. xi., 15], his 
pastoral staff or wooden dagger of ' susj^ension,' wherewith 
he keepeth such a flourishing as the flies can have no rest ; 
yea, by your leave, if any poor man in any parish offend him, 
he may, j^eradventure, go without his bread and wine that 
day." 

It did not escape the notice of Barrowe that the Puritan 
scheme proposed an ecclesiastical government of the jjeople, 



A.D. 1590.] CONTUOVEESY UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 119 

but not hy the people. "Their permanent synods and coun- 
cils," he said, " which they would erect — not here to speak 
of their new Dutch classis, for therein is a secret — should 
only consist of priests — or ministers, as they term them. Peo- 
ple of the churches [must] be shut out, and neither be made 
acquainted with the matters debated there, nor have free voice 
in those synods and councils, but must receive and obey, 
without contradiction, whatever those learned priests shall 
decree. These synods' and councils' decrees . . . are most holy, 
without controlment, unless it be by the prince or the high 
court of Parliament." " The ' ancient ways' of the Lord are 
the only true ways; whatever is second, or diverse, is new and 
false. This I say, because both these factions (of our pontif- 
ical and reforming priests) have sought rather to the broken 
pits and dry cisterns of men's inventions, for their direction 
and groundwork, than unto the pure fountain of God's word." 
"You see how the one side — the Pontificals, I mean — 
... reject all claim the people can make, refuting them by 
Machiavel's considerations and Aristotle's politics instead of 
the New Testament ; alleging, I wot not how many, inconven- 
iences in way of bar. The other sect, or faction rather — these 
Reformists — howsoever, for fashion's sake, they give the peo- 
ple a little liberty, to sweeten their mouths and make them 
believe that they should choose their own ministers; yet, 
even in this pretended choice, they do cozen and beguile 
them also, leaving them nothing but the smoky, windy title 
of election only, enjoining them to choose some university 
clerk, one of these college-birds of their own brood, or else 
comes a synod in the neck of them, and annihilates the elec- 
tion whatsoever it be. They have also a trick to stop it, be- 
fore it come so far; namely, in the ordination, which must, 
forsooth, be done by other priests, for the church that chooseth 
him hath no power to ordain him. And this makes the 
mother church of Geneva, and the Dutch classis — I dare not 
say the secret classis in England — to make ministers for us 
in Emiland." 



120 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [ciI.VII. 

The Reverend George Giffard, who wrote himself " Min- 
ister of God's holy word in Maldon" (Essex), " was a great 
and diligent preacher, and much esteemed by many of good 
rank in the town, and had brought that place to more sobri- 
ety and knowledge of true religion," He had suflered as a 
Puritan, "there being some things in the Book of Common 
Prayer which he was not persuaded of to be agreeable to 
the word of God." For this and other alleged offenses, he 
had been suspended from his ministry, brought before the 
High Commission, and imprisoned ; but, for want of evidence 
to sustain the charges against him, he had been released and 
permitted to resume his work. Persisting in his opinions 
and practices, he came again under the censure of Bishop 
Aylmer, more than two years before the imprisonment of 
Barrowe and Greenwood, and was a second time suspended 
from his functions. On both occasions his friends — among 
whom were some of the aldermen and other official persons 
in that town — made their earnest petition to the bishop in 
his behalf, and in both instances he was released and re- 
stored — probably because the influence of Lord Burleigh, to 
whom they represented the case, and whom they persuaded 
to intercede for them with Archbishop Whitgift, was too 
powerful to be resisted. What Giftard's position was among 
the Puritan clergymen of Essex appears from a supplication 
which twenty-seven of them made, about that time, to the 
Lords of the Council, and in which, after protesting their 
loyalty as subjects and their fidelity as preachers of the Gos- 
pel, they said, " We are in great heaviness, and some of us 
already put to silence, and the rest living in fear, . . . be- 
cause we refuse to subscribe ' that there is nothing contained 
in the Book of Common Prayer contraiy to the word of 
God.'" Of the names subscribed to that petition, George 
GiiFard is the first. So it came to pass that, notwithstand- 
ing the vigilance of Aylmer and Whitgift, that " minister of 
God's holy word " was still at his post in Maldon, carrying- 
on "the reformation he had made in that market-town by 



A.D. 1590.] PURITANISM AGAINST SEPARATISM. 121 

his preaching," and steadily puritanizing the whole parish, 
when Barrowe sent forth, from his prison, the "Discovery 
ofthe False Church."' 

It was only among Puritans, and in parishes where there 
were ministers who felt themselves to be not priests, but 
"ministers of God's Avord," that such a book was likely to 
find readers. We may presume that in the market-town of 
Maldon, and in other panshes of Essex under the twenty- 
seven Puritan ministers, there were some whose Puritanism 
was almost ready to lapse into Separatism, and to whom the 
arguments and invectives of that book, or even the bold and 
incisive answers which the Separatist confessors had given 
before the High Commission, would be as fire to fuel pre- 
pared for burning. The Maldon preacher found himself 
called to refute the opinions of Barrowe and his fellow-con- 
fessor; and, very promptly, he published "A Short Treatise 
against the Donatists of England, whom we call Brownists, 
wherein, by answers unto certain Avritings of theirs, divers 
of their heresies are noted, with sundry fantastical opinions." 
Very convenient Avas that word " Donatist." It was a name 
taken from ecclesiastical history ; few of the laity would 
know the meaning of it, and most readers would assume that 
it meant something very bad, and that even a godly man 
was in danger of lapsing into Donatism if he had fellowship 
with the Brownists. "There is risen up among us," said 
Gifliard, " a blind sect, opposite to these [the Papists], which 
is so furious that it cometh like a raging tempest from a 
contrary coast, so that our ship is tossed between contrary 
waves. For these cry aloud that our assemblies be llomish, 
idolatrous, and antichristian synagogues; that Ave worship 
the beast, receive his mark, and stand under his yoke ; and, 
finally, that Ave have no ministry, no Avord of God, nor sac- 
raments." Briefly, the embarrassing question for the Puri- 
tans Avho maintained their connection Avith the National 

' Brook, ii., 273-278. Strype," Aylraer," 71-73 ; " Whitgift," i., 152, 153, 



122 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. VII. 

Church in the hope of reforming it, was this, If the Church 
of England is a true church, why is not the Church of Rome 
a true church ? The question which Giffard, by the very 
title of his book, committed himself to answer was. How is 
it that those who separate from the Church of England for 
the sake of a purer worship and a strictly evangelical disci- 
pline deserve to be stigmatized with the name of an ancient 
and maligned schism, unless the Church of England itself 
have become Douatist by separating from the self-styled 
Catholic Church under the jDretense of reformation and for the 
sake of throwing off an unwarranted government and super- 
stitious worship? Doubtless his solution of that difficulty 
was satisfactory to himself, but it did not satisfy those whom 
he called the Donatists of England. 

Another champion of the National Church Avas already in 
the field. Even before the " Discovery of the False Church " 
had been printed. Dr. Robert Some had assailed Barrowe 
and Greenwood in a book which he dated " from my Lord's 
Grace of Canterbury his house in Lambeth," and which he 
entitled "A Godly Treatise, Avherein are examined and con- 
futed many execrable fancies, given out and holden, partly 
by Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood, and partly by oth- 
er of the Anabaptistical order." Dr. Some had already at- 
tempted to defend the National Church against Puritan re- 
formers, and his earlier " Godly Treatise," five times larger 
than this, will be mentioned in the progress of our story. 
He had now found that another movement, more revolution- 
ai'y in its remoter tendencies than Puritanism, was stirring 
the thoughts of some earnest Englishmen ; and as the Re- 
formist preacher in Maldon called those men Donatists whose 
plans of reformation were more radical than his own, so to 
this Conformist writer in Lambeth Palace it seemed equally 
convenient and more efficient to call them by a name which 
was not only more reproachful theologically, but more alarm- 
ing to the secular power. lie called them Anabaptists. 
Dedicating his pamphlet to Lord Chancellor Hatton and 



A.D. 1590.] PURITANISM AGAINST SEPARATISM. 123 

Lord Treasurer Burleigh, he complained that " the Anabap- 
tistical sort" were growing bold. "Henry Barrowe and 
John Greenwood," said he, "are the masters of that college; 
men as yet " — after so many years of imprisonment — " very 
willful and ignorant. The way to cure them, if God will, is 
to teach and punish thein." 

The two prisoners, notwithstanding the difficulties under 
which they labored, were j^rompt in sustaining their part of 
the controversy. In the same year with the publication of 
GifTard's treatise (1590), there came forth, printed, doubtless, 
at some foreign press, Greenwood's " Answer to George Gif- 
fard's px'etended Defense of Read Prayers and Devised Lit- 
urgies." It was a vehement attack on the Puritan party, 
not only exposing the erroneous principles of those reform- 
ers who retained their connection with the ecclesiastical es- 
tablishment, and recognized it as the church of Christ in 
England, but even assailing their persons with most unchar- 
itable vituperation. "Railing accusations," however inex- 
cusable, are a natural weapon in such a conflict as that which 
the Separatists were waging. Overwhelmed with oppro- 
brium from the Prelatists, on one side, and the Puritans on 
the other, they did not always follow the example of Him 
" who when he was reviled, reviled not again." That we 
may fairly appreciate the controversy between Puritanism 
and Separation, we must see with what invectives each as- 
sailed the other. 

Giflard's position in the National Church was only that of 
a lecturer or " stipendiary preacher." A special sermon on 
a week-day, or in the afternoon of the Lord's day, was called 
a lecture, and could be preached by ministers whose non- 
conformity made them unable to serve in the care of a par- 
ish. The Puritan clergy were zealous preachers ; their chief 
work in their own estimation was the holding forth of God's 
word rather than the reading of prayers or the administra- 
tion of sacraments. The Puritan laity were diligent hearers 
of sermons, and earnest to have their neighbors hear with 



124 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [cH. VII. 

them. It was natural, therefore, for the sermon-loving in- 
habitants of a parish, especially in a market-town, to estab- 
lish a lecture, providing a stipend for tlie lecturer either by a 
temporary subscription or by a settled endowment. Under 
such an arrangement George Giffard was a " minister of God's 
holy word in Maldon." Against him holding such a place, 
and yielding only that partial and compromising conformity 
to the usurpations of the ecclesiastical establishment, the un- 
compromising Greenwood gave indignant testimony. 

" He writeth himself ' minister of God's holy word in Mal- 
don.' ... He hath not in Maldon the credit or' room of so 
much as a curate, the pastor there supplying his own office ; 
but he is brought in by such of the parish as, having ' itch- 
ing ears,' get unto themselves a heap of new-fangled teach- 
ers, after their own lusts, disliking and watching the min- 
istry that is set over them, to which, notwithstanding, in hy- 
pocrisy and for fear of the world, they join in prayer and 
sacraments, and pay tithes and maintenance as to the proper 
minister. To such people, being rich and able to pay them 
well, these sectary precise ' preachers ' run for their hire and 
wages, but chiefly for vain glory and Avorldly ostentation. 
And there they teach and preach . . . for the most part un- 
der some dumb and plurified pastor, from whom, as from in- 
sufficient and blind guides, they withdraw not the people. . . . 
Yet, for their own estimation, advantage, and entertainment, 
they will by all subtle means, underhand, seek to alienate 
the hearts and minds of this forward and best-inclined peo- 
ple from these their pastors, and slily to draw them unto 
themselves. 

"Long it were to relate their arts and engines whereby 
they hunt and entangle poor souls ; their counterfeit shows 
of holiness . . . austereness of manners, preciseness in trifles, 
large conscience in matters of greatest weight — especially of 
any danger ; straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel ; 
hatred and thundering against some sin ; tolerating, yea, col- 
oring some other in some special persons . . . holding and with- 



A.D. 1590.] PURITANISM AGAINST SEPARATISM. 125 

holding the known truth of God in respect of times, places, 
and persons . . . under the color of peace, Christian policy, 
and wisdom. 

"Hence arise these schisms and sects in the Church of En- 
gland ; some holding with these ' preachers,' who make a 
show as though they sought a sincere reformation of all 
things according to the Gospel of Christ, and yet both exe- 
cute a false ministry themselves, and . . . stand under that 
throne of Antichrist (the bishops, their courts and accom- 
plices, and all those detestable enormities) which they should 
have utterly removed, and not reformed. And these are, here- 
upon, called Precisians, or 'Puritans,' and now lately 'Mar- 
tinists.' The other side are the ' Pontificals,' that in all 
things hold and jump with the time, and are ready to justi- 
fy whatever is or sliall be by public authority established; 
and with these hold all the rabble of atheists, dissembling 
papists, cold and lukewarm Protestants, libertines, dissolute, 
and facinorous persons, and such as have no knowledge or 
fear of God." These opposite parties are like " that ancient 
sect of the Pharisees and Sadducees — the one in preciseness, 
outward show of holiness, hypocrisy, vain glory, covetous- 
ness, resembling, or rather exceeding the Pharisees ; the oth- 
er, in their whole religion and dissolute conversation, like 
unto the Sadducees, looking for no resurrection, judgment, or 
life to come — confessing God with their lips, and serving him 
after their careless manner, but denying him in their heart, 
yea, openly in their deeds, as their whole life and all their 
works declare." 

Such vehemence of vituperation was, doubtless, too gener- 
ally characteristic of those earliest Separatists. To conceal 
this, or to overlook it, would be inconsistent with the truth 
of history. Greenwood, and others like him, used the same 
violence of speech concerning their adversaries — whom they 
held to be adversaries of truth — which their adversaries used 
toward them, and which Luther and the Reformers used con- 
cerning the pope and the upholders of his power. When a 



1 26 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VII, 

Separatist confessor, testifying and suffering for the universal 
priesthood of Christ's redeemed ones, and for their right to 
associate in free and self-governed churches, cries out of his 
prison against Puritan lecturers in the Church of England, 
and calls them " these Pharisee-sectary-teachers," " these sti- 
pendiary, roving predicants, that have no certain office or 
place assigned them in their church, but, like wandering stars, 
remove from place to place for their greatest advantage and 
best entertainment," we seem to hear in these hiirsh tones a 
voice like that of Knox or of Wycliffe, 

The great offense of those whom Giffard insisted on call- 
ing " Brownists," in spite of their disclaimer, was that they 
disowned the National Church, and withdrew from it. Gif- 
fard had said of them, "They can not, but with heresies and 
most heinous injury and inordinate dealing, condemn a church 
as quite divorced and separate from Christ, for such corrup- 
tions and imperfections in God's worship as be not funda- 
mental nor destroy the substance." Greenwood replied, 
" We never condemned any true church for any fault what- 
soever, knowing that where true faith is, there is repentance, 
and where true faith and repentance are, there is remission 
of all sins." But "for their idolatry, confusion, sacrilege, 
false and antichristian ministry and government, obstinacy in 
all these sins, hatred of the truth, and persecution of Christ's 
servants, we have proved the Church of England not to be 
the true, but the malignant church. . . . We but discover their 
sins and show their estate by the word of God, refraining 
from and witnessing against their abominations, as we are 
commanded by that voice from heaven, ' Go out of her, ray 
people, that ye communicate not in her sins, and that ye re- 
ceive not of her plagues.' . . . Let her shipmasters, then, her 
mariners, merchantmen, enchanters, and false prophets, utter 
and retail her Avares — deck and adorn her with the scarlet, 
purple, gold, silver, jewels, and ornaments of the true taber- 
nacle ; let them, in her, offer up their sacrifices, their beasts, 
sheep, meal, wine, oil, their odors, ointments, and frankin- 



A,D. 1591.] PURITANISM AGAINST SEPARATISM. 127 

cense ; let them daub and undershore her, build and reform 
her — until the storm of the Lord's wrath break forth, the 
morning Avhereof all these divines shall not foresee . . . until 
the wall and the daubers be no more. But let the wise, that 
are warned and see the evil, fear and depart from the same ; 
so shall they preserve their own souls as a prey, and the 
Lord shall bring them among his redeemed to Zion ' with 
praise,' and ' everlasting joy ' shall be upon their heads; ' they 
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall 
flee away.' " 

Another reply to Giflard was prepared by the two pris- 
oners, and was printed (1591) at Middleburg, in Zealand. 
Barrowe's part of it purported to be, "A Plain Refutation 
of Mr. Giffard's Book, intitled 'A Short Treatise against the 
Donatists of England :' Wherein is discovered the Forgery 
of the whole Ministry, the Confusion, False Worship, and 
Antichristian Disorder of these Parish Assemblies called 'The 
Church of England.' Here also is iDreflxed, A Sum of the 
Causes of our Separation, and of our Purposes in Practice." 
Greenwood's contribution to the volume was, "A Brief Ref- 
utation of Mr. Giftard's supposed consimilitude betwixt the 
Donatists and us : Wherein is showed how his arguments 
have been and may be, by the Papists, more justly retorted 
against himself and the present estate of their church." The 
"Epistle Dedicatory to the Right Honorable Peer and grave 
Counselor," Lord Burleigh, was subscribed, "Henry Barrowe 
and John Greenwood, for the testimony of the Gospel, in 
close prison." In that dedication of their work to perhaps 
the only member of the queen's government whom they 
could reasonably regard as a possible friend and protector, 
they complained of the hardships they had suffered, and apol- 
ogized for the " bold presumption " of defending themselves 
and the truth, for which they were God's witnesses. " Our 
malignant adversaries have had full scope against us, with 
the law in their own hands." "They have made no spare or 
conscience to accuse, blaspheme, condemn, and punish us." 



128 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. VII. 

" Openly in their pulpits and in their printed books — to the 
ears and eyes of all men — they have pronounced and pub- 
lished us as 'damnable heretics, schismatics, sectaries, sedi- 
tious, disobedient to princes, deniers and abridgers of their 
sacred power.' " " No trial has been granted us : either civ- 
il, that we might know for what cause and by what law we 
thus suffer (which yet is not denied the most horrible male- 
factors and offenders), or ecclesiastical, by the word of God, 
where place of freedom might be given us to declare and 
plead our own cause in sobriety and order." "They have 
shut us up, now more than three years, in miserable and close 
prisons, from the air, and from all means so much as to write, 
ink and paper being taken and kept from us." " We have 
been rifled from time to time of all our papers and writings 
they could find." "While we were thus straitly kept and 
watched from speaking or writing, they suborned, among 
sundry others, two special instruments — Mr. Some and Mr. 
Giffard — to accuse and blaspheme us publicly to the view of 
the world, the one laboring to prove us ' Anabaptists,' the 
other ' Donatists.' " " Wherefore we addressed ourselves, 
by such means as the Lord administered, and as the in- 
commodities of the place, and the infirmities of our decayed 
bodies and memories would permit, to our defense ; or, 
rather, to the defense of that truth whereof God hath made 
and set us his unworthy witnesses." 

At the time when these partners in testimony and in suf- 
fering had overcome " the incommodities of the place," and 
notwithstanding the vigilance of their enemies had their 
book ready in some sort for the printer, and when their 
manuscripts were smuggled "beyond seas" to be printed, 
Francis Johnson was ministering as chaplain to the English 
merchants at Middleburg, being supported by them with a 
commendable liberality. Like most of the English clergy- 
men who found employment of that sort in foreign ports, he 
was an advanced Puritan, zealous not only against super- 
stitious vestments and ceremonies, but against the govern- 



A.D. 1591.] PURITANISM AGAINST SEPARATISM. 129 

ment established in the Chnrcli of England. At the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge, two years before, he had given offense to 
the ruling powers by a sermon, after the manner of Cart- 
wright, maintaining that the church ought to be governed 
by teaching and ruling elders, and implying that any other 
government in the cliurch is unauthorized. For that ser- 
mon he was summoned before the vice-chancellor and the 
heads of the colleges, and was by their authority committed 
to prison. Being required to make a public recantation, and 
refusing to make it in the terms prescribed, he was expelled 
from the university. He appealed against that sentence, and 
was then imprisoned again because he would not go away 
till his case had been decided. The result was that, after a 
twelvemonth of academic agitation between the Conformist 
and Reformist factions, he withdrew from Cambridge, and 
we next find him " preacher to the Company of English of 
the Staple at Middleburg, in Zealand." The fact came to his 
knowledge that a book by two Separatists so notorious and 
so obnoxious as Barrowe and Greenwood was in the hands of 
printers there; and, as a loyal though Puritan member and 
minister of the Church of England, he was alarmed at the 
thought of how much harm might be done by the circulation 
of that book in England. He communicated the alarming 
information to the English embassador, and was employed 
to " intercept " the publication, and to take care that the 
edition should be destroyed. He waited till the last sheets 
had gone through the press ; and then he executed his com- 
mission so thoroughly that he permitted only two copies to 
escape the fire — " one to keep in his own study that he might 
see their errors, and the other to bestow on a special friend 
for the like use." So the great labor of the two prisoners, 
amid " continual tossings and turmoils, searches and riflings, 
and with no peace or means given them to write or revise 
what they had written," seemed to have been in vain. 

Yet it was not entirely labor lost. It took effect in an un- 
expected way, first on the overzealous Puritan who had "in- 

I 



130 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, VII. 

terceptecl" and destroyed the edition. "When he had done 
this work, he Avent home, and being set down in his study, 
he began to turn over some pages of this book, and super- 
ficially to read some things here and there as his fancy led 
him. At length he met with something that began to work 
upon his spirit, which so wrought with him as drew him to 
this resolution, seriously to read over the whole book ; the 
which he did once and again. In the end he was so taken, 
and his conscience was troubled so, as he could have no rest 
in himself until he crossed the seas and came to London to 
confer with the authors, who were then in prison," 

Fourteen years later, the "intercepted" book was reprinted 
at Amsterdam. Francis Johnson, banished from England as 
a Separatist, had become the pastor of a banished church 
which had found a refuge in that city ; and there " he caused 
the same books which he had been an instrument to burn, to 
be new printed and set out at his own charge." ^ 

' Ilanbnrv, i., 30-70; Bradford, in "Chronicles of the Pilgrims,"' 424. 
425; Strype, "Annals," iii., pt. ii., 589-592; App., 267-269; Book ii., 
89-96. 



A.D. 1592.] THE MAKTYK CHUECH. 131 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MAETYR CHURCH : THE JAILS AND THE GALLOWS. 

When Francis Johnson returned to England that he 
might confer with Barrowe and Greenwood in prison, he 
committed himself to the cause of the Separatists in London, 
and shared thenceforth in their testimony and in their suffer- 
ings. They could not but be encouraged by the accession 
of a clergyman who had lately been a fellow in one of the 
colleges at Cambridge, who as a Puritan had suffered im- 
prisonment and loss for conscience' sake, and who, having 
been as zealous as Giffixrd against Separation, had given up 
safety and a comfortable support from an English congrega- 
tion in the jSTetherlands for the sake of helping the cause 
he had opposed. Soon after his coming among them, they 
proceeded to institute, under his leadership, a formal organ- 
ization. 

Before that time they had held their "secret conventicles" 
or prayer-meetings, such as we may suppose the Lollards to 
have held in the foregoing ages. By the government they 
were held to be a "wicked sect" with "wicked opinions," 
and, to detect their wickedness, they were watched as if they 
were a gang of thieves. Some of them were subjected to 
examination; and from their "confessions," together with 
certain pamphlets of the time, a statement was drawn up, 
by the queen's attorney-general, to show how dangerous a 
sect they were, and how detestable were their opinions. The 
grave annalist of the Church of England, writing while the 
facts Avere less significant than they now are, and when 
passion had not yet cooled, deemed that paper so important 
that he inserted it in his history; and so it has come down 



132 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.VIII. 

to US.' It is in some points a vivid picture of the people 
whom the government of Queen Elizabeth thought worthy 
of persecution as criminals dangerous to society.^ These 
were some of their nefarious practices : 

" In the summer-time they meet together in the fields, a 
mile or more [from London]. There they sit down upon a 
bank, and divers of them expound out of the Bible as long as 
they are there assembled. 

"In the winter-time they assemble themselves by five of 
the clock in the morning to the house where they make their 
conventicle for the Sabbath-day, men and women together. 
There they continue in their kind of prayers and exposition 
of Scriptures all the day. They dine together. After dinner 
[they] make collections to pay for their diet. And what 
money is left, some one of them carrieth to the prisons where 
any of their sort be committed. 

" In their prayers one speaketh, and the rest do groan and 
sob and sigh, as if they would wring out tears, but say not 
after him that prayeth. Their prayer is extemporal. 

*' In their conventicles they use not the Lord's Pra3'er, nor 
any form of set prayer. For the Lord's Prayer, one who 
hath been a daily resorter to their conventicles this year and 
a half on the Sabbath-days, confesseth that he never heard it 
said among them. And this is the doctrine of the use of it 
in their pamphlets : To that which is alleged that we ought 
to say the Lord's Prayer because our Saviour Christ saith : 
' When you pray, do you say thus,' we answer he did not say, 
' Read thus,' or ' Pray these words ;' for that place is to be 
otherwise understood, namely, all our petitions must be di- 
rected by this general doctrine." 

"For the use of set or stinted prayers, as they term it, 
this they teach : That all stinted prayers, or said service, is 

' Strype, "Annals," iii., pt. ii., r)79-S81. 

^ The reader can hardly fail to remember Pliny's famous letter to Trajan 
concerning the persecuted Christians in Bithynia, at the commencement of 
the second century. 



A.D. 1592,] THE MARTYR CHURCH. 133 

but babbling in the Lord's sight, and hath neither promise 
of blessing nor edification, for tliat they are but cushions for 
such idle priests and atheists as have not tlie Spirit of God. 
And therefore to offer up prayers by reading or by wiit 
unto God is plain idolatry. 

" In all their meetings they teach that there is no head or 
supreme governor of the church of God but Christ ; and that 
the queen hath no authority to appoint ministers in the 
church, nor to set down any government for the church, 
which is not directly commanded in God's word. 

"To confirm their private conventicles and expounding 
there, they teach that a private man, being a brother, may 
preach to beget faith ; and, now that the office of the apostles 
is ceased, there needeth not public ministers, but every man 
in his own calling was to preach the Gospel. 

" To come to our churches in England, to any public prayer 
or preaching of whomsoever, they condemn it as a thing un- 
lawful, for that they say, as the Church of England stand- 
eth, they be all false teachers and false prophets that be in 
it. Their reason is, for that our preachers, as they say, do 
teach us that the state of the realm of England is tlie true 
church, which they deny. And therefore they say that all 
preachers of [the Church of] England be false preachers sent 
in the Lord's anger to deceive his people with lies, and not 
true preachers to bring the glad tidings of the Gospel. And 
all that come to our churches to public prayers or sermons, 
they account damnable souls. 

" Concerning the authority of magistracy, they say that 
our preachers teach we must not cast our pollutions out of 
the church until the magistrate hath disannulled the same ; 
which they say is contrary to the doctrine of the apostles, 
who did not tarry for the authority of the magistrate." 
" And therefore our preachers, they say, be false prophets, 
for that we ought to reform without the magistrate if he 
be slow, for that, they say, the primitive church, whose ex- 
ample ought to be our warrant, sued not to the courts and 



134 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [cil. VIII. 

jDarliaments, nor waited upon princes for their reformation. 
When the stones were ready, they went presently forward 
with their building." 

Other things were set down against them. They abhor- 
red the Book of Common Prayer as " full of errors and abom- 
inations." They " condemned as apostates " those who, hav- 
ing been of their brotherhood, had fallen away from them. 
They even inflicted in such cases a solemn censure of excom- 
munication. They would not have their children baptized 
in the Church of England, "but rather chose to let them go 
unbaptized." It " could not be learned where they received 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper," and " one who never 
missed their meeting-place a year and a half confesseth that 
he never saw any ministration of the sacrament, nor knoweth 
where it is done." Nor did they marry and give in mar- 
riage according to the ritual of the Church of England — "if 
any of their church mai-ry together, some of their own broth- 
erhood must marry them."^ 

At the time when that statement was drawn up, the Lon- 
don Separatists had not quite completed their organization 
as a church. The facts that they had among them no cele- 
bration of the Lord's Supper, and that they chose to let their 
children go unbaptized rather than to have them baptized 
by a parish priest, are thus explained. But encouraged by 
the accession of Francis Johnson, and confident in his ability 
to lead them, they determined to become a cora2:)letely or- 
ganized church according to the rules and precedents of the 
New Testament. Cartwright, the great Puritan, had said 
not long before to his sister-in-law, who was one of them, 
and who had argued that the Church of England was not the 
church of Christ, inasmuch as it had no free election of min- 
isters, " If for this want we be not of the church of Christ, 
how much more are you not of that church who have no 
ministers at all, and no election at all?" He added, "There 

' Compare what Greenwood said in his examination, p. 107. 



A.D. 1592.] THE MAETYE CHUECH. 135 

is not SO mucli as one among you that is fit foi" the func- 
tion of the ministry by those necessary gifts which are re- 
quired in the ministry of the word."^ This reproach on the 
London Separatists was taken away when a Puritan clergy- 
man so well known as Francis Johnson joined himself to 
them. They had been a church, and had so regarded them- 
selves, for we know not how long a time, each member at 
his admission entering into a sacred covenant " that he would 
walk with the rest of the congregation, so long as they did 
walk in the way of the Lord, and as far as might be war- 
ranted by the word of God ;" but as yet they had elected 
none to any oifice. It was evidently their belief that the 
church makes the officer, and not the officer the church. They 
had been acting on the principle afterward defined by the 
fathers of New England — " There may be the essence and 
being of a church without any officers ;" and now they were 
ready to act on the co-ordinate principle (September, 1592), 
"Though officers be not absolutely necessary to the simple 
being of a church, yet ordinarily to their calling they ai'e, 
and to their well-being." ^ Francis Johnson, of whom Brad- 
ford afterward testified, "A very grave man he was, and an 
able teacher, and Avas the most solemn in all his administra- 
tions that we have seen,"^ was chosen pastor; John Green- 
wood, teacher; Daniel Studley and George Kniston, ruling 
elders ; and Christopher Bowman and Nicholas Lee, deacons. 
With what formalities those brethren, when elected, were 
inducted into their offices, does not appear from any docu- 
ment that has come down to us. But we may be sure of 
this : They held that " ordination is not to go before, but to 
follow election,-' and is only "the solemn putting a man into 
his place and office whereunto he had right before by elec- 
tion, being like the installing of a magistrate in the common- 

' Waddington, " John Penry," p. 85, 86. 
^ "Cambridge Platform," ch. vi., §1,2. 

'Bradford's "Dialogue," in Young't; •"Chronicles of the Pilgrims," p. 
U5. 



136 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECIIES. [CH.VIII. 

wealth."^ Nor could they have been so forgetful of their 
own principles as to dream for a moment that the imposition 
of prelatical hands, by which Johnson and Greenwood had 
formerly been introduced into the national priesthood, was 
a reason for not ordairiing them to their offices of pastor and 
teacher. Doubtless there was solemn prayer, devoting and 
commending them to God. Probably they wei'e " set apart " 
by "the laying on of the hands''^ [cTr/^eo-te rwr ^ftpwr] of 
brethren deputed by the church to perform that service. 
Yet it may be that the lifting up of the hands of the church^ 
[xeiporoi'i)(TarTEe] was deemed a sufficient ordination. The 
persecuted church had its four "bishops" and its two "dea- 
cons." 

Then, for the first time in that church, there was the ad- 
ministration of baptism. Seven children, " being of several 
years of age," were presented, " but they had neither godfa- 
thers nor godmothers." The pastor " took water and wash- 
ed the faces of them that were baptized," " saying only . . . 
' I do baptize thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost,' without using any other ceremony." 
Then, too, having their own official ministers of the word, 
they could orderly celebrate the Lord's Supper. It was 
with strict adherence to the precedents recorded in the New 
Testament, and therefore with the utmost simplicity of cere- 
monial, that they "broke bread" in remembrance of Christ. 
" Five white loaves, or more, were set upon the table. The 
pastor did break the bread, and then delivered it to some 
of them, and the deacons delivered to the rest, some of the 
congregation sitting and some standing about the table. 
The pastor delivered the cup unto one, and he to another, 

' "Cambridge Platform." cli. ix., § 2. 

= 1 Tim. iv., 13 ; 2 Tim. i., 6 ; Heb. vi., 2. 

' Acts xiv., 23; 2 Cor. viii., 19. Some churches in Englaml (if I am 
rightly informed) ordain their ministers only by "the lifting up of hands." 
So eminent a minister as Robert Hall, whose name is among the treasures 
of the universal church of Christ, received no other ordination. 



A.D. 1592.] THE MARTYR CHURCH. 137 

till they all had drunken." At the delivery of the bread 
and the cup he used the words of Christ set down by the 
apostle Paul, "Take, eat; this is my body which is broken 
for vou: this do in remembrance of me ;" and, "This cup is 
the new testament in my blood : this do ye, as oft as ye 
drink it, in remembrance of me." Nor could he fail to add, 
"As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do 
show the Lord's death till he come."^ In no English cathe- 
dral was our Lord's memorial supper celebrated more fitly, 
or more impressively, than in that humble conventicle, " when 
the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled, for 
fear of the " High Commission. 

How it happened that Greenwood, the prisoner, was pres- 
ent when the church completed its organization — if, indeed, 
he were present — does not appear. It may be that he was 
there by the connivance of the jailer who was responsible 
for his safe-keeping. 2 It may be that, though absent and in 
prison, he was chosen teacher in the hope that he would soon 
be at liberty. Or it may be that the church, in choosing its 
pastor and teacher, remembered them that were in bonds, as 
bound with them, and that for that reason Greenwood, 
though a prisoner, was chosen to be one of the ministers. 
The number of Separatists in the prisons of London was so 
considerable, that not far from that time they made a formal 
petition to Lord Burleigh, beseeching him to procure for 
them a " speedy trial together, or some free Christian confer- 
ence ;" or that they might be " bailed according to law ;" or, 
if such favors could not be granted to them, that they might 
be collected into one prison, "where they might be together 
for mutual help and comfort." That petition was subscribed 
by fifty-nine prisoners (including Barrowe and Greenwood), 
and the names of ten more who had already died in prison 

1 1 Cor. xii., 24-20. 

^ Some instances of such kindness on the part of jailers toward ministers 
imprisoned for the Gospel's sake are well authenticated. Waddiugton's 
"Penry,"p. 120, 2'A. 



138 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CU. VIII. 

were appended.^ If the survivors could have been brought 
together in one prison, Greenwood being one of them, there 
would have been an obvious division of labor between the 
pastor and the teacher — one ministering to the imprisoned 
portion of the church, the other laboring in word and doe- 
trine among those who had not yet been cast into prison. 

The proceedings which have just been described seem to 
have been followed by a more vigorous .persecution of the 
Separatists. In the estimation of those who then governed 
England, such proceedings — the voluntary association of be- 
lievers in a church, their election of bishops and deacons ac- 
cording to precedents in the apostolic age, and their ad- 
ministration of Christian sacraments, all in disregard of the 
queen's ecclesiastical supremacy and of the Act of Uniform- 
ity — were atrocious, and not to be borne. The petition to 
the lord high treasurer brought no relief to the prisoners; or, 
if it had any effect, its effect was an increase of their suffer- 
ings. Another memorial, not long afterward, was addressed 
to the " lords of the council," and was a more elaborate and 
ample statement of their case. That paper, entitled "The 
humble supplication of tlie faithful servants of the church of 
Christ, in the behalf of their ministers and preachers impris- 
oned," may be taken as a formal manifesto from the church, 
setting forth, officially, the issue between the jjersecuted and 
the persecutors. 

After courteous expressions of respect, the petitioners, in 
the first and comprehensive statement of their grievance, took 
occasion to affirm their innocence and their loyalty to the 
queen. " We are," said they," her majesty's poor, oppressed 
subjects," " whose entire faith unto God, loyalty to our sov- 
ereign, obedience to our governors, reverence to our supe- 
riors, innocency in all good conversation toward all men, can 
not avail us for the safety of our lives, liberty, or goods — 
not even by her highness's royal laws, and the public char- 

' Strype,iv., 91-93. 



A.D. 1592.] THE MARTYR CHURCH. 139 

ter of this land — from the violence and invasion of our ad- 
versaries, her majesty's subjects." 

They proceeded by referring to the fact that the queen, as 
a Protestant sovereign, had not only permitted the publica- 
tion of the Bible, but had " exhorted all her subjects to the 
diligent reading and sincere obedience thereof." By such 
use of the Scrij^tures, " we," said they, " upon due examina- 
tion and assured proof, find the whole jiublic ministry, minis- 
tration, worshij), government, ordinances, and proceedings ec- 
clesiastical of this land, to be strange and quite dissenting 
from the rule of Christ's Testament ; not to belong unto, or 
to have any place or use, or so much as mention in his church ; 
but rather to belong unto, and to be derived from, the ma- 
lignant synagogue of Antichrist, being the selfsame that the 
pope used and left in this land ;" wherefore " we dare not by 
any means defile or subject ourselves in any outward sub- 
jection or inward consent thereunto." Their withdrawal 
from all communion with the ecclesiastical establishment was 
to them a conscientious necessity. 

But they had not simply withdrawn from the parish church- 
es. They had done what the primate and the High Com- 
mission regarded as a much greater sin. " We," said they, 
"by the Holy Scriptures, find God's absolute commandment 
that all which hear and believe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ should forthwith thereupon forsake their evil walk, 
and from thenceforth walk in Christ's holy faith and order, 
together Avith his faithful servants, subjecting themselves to 
the ministry, and those holy laws and ordinances which the 
Lord Jesus hath appointed, and whereby only he is present 
and reigneth in his church. Wherefore, both for the enjoy- 
ing of that inestimable comfort of his joyful presence and 
protection, and to show our obedience to God's holy com- 
mandment, we have, in his reverent fear and love, joined our- 
selves together in that Christian faith, order, and communion 
prescribed in his word, and [have] subjected our souls and 
bodies to those holy laws and ordinances which the Son of 



140 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. VIII. 

God hath instituted, and whereby he is present and raleth 
his church here beneath; and [we] have chosen to ourselves 
such a ministry of pastor, teacher, elders, deacons, as Christ 
hath given to his church here on earth to the world's end." 
In this organized fellowship, "notwithstanding any prohibi- 
tion of men, or Avhat by men can be done unto us," we ex- 
pect " the promised assistance of God's grace," which will en- 
able us " to worship him aright, and to frame all our pro- 
ceedings according to the prescript of his word, and to lead 
our lives in holiness and righteousness before him, in all du- 
tiful obedience and humble subjection to our magistrates and 
governors set over us by the Lord." 

They professed themselves ready to prove against all men 
tliat their proceedings were " warrantable by the word of 
God, allowable by her majesty's laws, noways prejudicial to 
her sovereign jjower, or offensive to the public peace of the 
state." At the same time, they affirmed that the onl}' adver- 
saries against whom they had any special complaint were 
the clergy — " the officers of Antichrist's kingdom — namely, 
the Romish prelacy and priesthood left in the land." The 
persecution which they suffered was carried on in the name, 
not of the state, but of the church, and the particulars of their 
complaint to "the lords of the council," against that "resid- 
uary Romish prelacy and priesthood," were such as these : 

" Their dealing with us is, and hath been a long time, most 
injurious, outrageous, and unlawful, by the great power and 
high authority they have gotten in their hands, and usurped 
above all the public courts, judges, laws, and charters of this 
land ; persecuting, imprisoning, detaining at their pleasures 
our poor bodies, without any trial, release, or bail permitted 
yet ; and, hitherto, without any cause cither for error or 
crime directly objected," " Some of us they have now 
more than five years in jsrison (158V-92) ; yea, four of these 
five years in close prison, with miserable usage, as Henry 
Barrowe and John Greenwood, at this present in the Fleet. 
Others they have cast into their limbo of Newgate, laden 



A.D. 1592.] THE CHURCH AXD THE JAILS. 141 

witli as many irons as they could bear; others into the dan- 
gerous and loathsome jail, among the most facinorous and 
vile persons — where it is lamentable to relate how many of 
these innocents have perished Avithin these five years, and 
of these, some aged widows, aged men, and young maidens — 
and where so many as the infection' hath spared shall lie in 
woeful distress, like to follow their fellows if speedy redress 
be not had. Others of us have been grievously beaten with 
cudgels in the prison, as at Bridewell, and cast into a place 
called 'Little-ease' there, for refusing to come to their chap- 
el service there ; in which prison they, and others of ns not 
long after, ended their lives. Upon none of us thus commit- 
ted by them, dying in their prison, is any search or inquest 
suffered to .pass, as by law in like case is provided."^ 

The "humble supplication" had other details for her maj- 
esty's council. "Their manner of pursuing and apprehend- 
ing us," said the petitioners, "is Avith no less violence and 
outrage. Their ^pursuivants, with assistants, break into our 
houses at all hours of the night. . . . There they break up, 
ransack, rifle, and make havoc at their pleasure, under pre- 
tense of searchinof for seditious and unlawful books. The 



' The "jail fever," so common at that time, and long afterward, in the 
English prisons. See Hopkins, iii., 487-490. 

'^ The significance of this fact should be remembered. English hiw re- 
quired, in cases of that kind, a coroner's inquest. But a jury, inquiring into 
the death of an "aged widow," or an "aged man," or a "3'oung maiden," 
dead in Bridewell, might give a censorious verdict, and might express and 
stimulate the indignation which pitying souls could not but feel at such cru- 
elties. The traditional jealousy of the people against punishments inflicted 
by church courts might break out, and the verdict of a coroner's jury might 
bring on a conflict between the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the courts 
of common law. The genius and methods of the English common law are 
more favorable to individual liberty than the genius and methods of the can- 
on or of the civil law. The Separatists believed that the common law, fair- 
ly applied and executed, would protect them. It was natural, therefore, 
for them, whenever one of their number perished in prison, to desire a cor- 
oner's inquest ; and it is easy to see why they could not have it. 



142 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.VIII. 

luisbands, in the deep of the night, they have phicked out of 
bed from their wives and haled them unjustly to prison." 
"About a month since their pursuivants, late in the night, en- 
tered, in the queen's name, into an honest citizen's house on 
Ludgate Hill, where, after they had at their pleasure search- 
ed and ransacked . . . the house, they apprehended two of our 
ministers — P^rancis Johnson, without any warrant at all, and 
John Greenwood ' — both whom, between one and two of the 
clock after midnight, they, with bills, and staves, led to" pris- 
on, " taking assurance of Edward Boys, the owner of this 
house, to be true prisoner in his own house until the next 
day," "at which time the archbishop, with certain doctors, 
his associates, committed them all three to close prison, two 
unto the Clink, the third again to the Fleet, where they re- 
main in great distress." 

Some additional instances of arrest, still more recent, hav- 
ing been mentioned, the petitioners proceeded to comj^lain 
of the "secret drifts and open practices whereby" their ad- 
versaries, the bishops, were seeking to draw them "into 
danger and hatred." Especially were they aggrieved by the 
polemic trick of "defaming and divulging" them "as Ana- 
baptists" — " as Donatists and schismatics" — as "seditions'* — 
and " as abridgers and encroachers upon the royal power of 
the queen." Against the calumny that they were disloyal 
to their sovereign, they made their protest : " We from our 
I hearts acknowledge her sovereign power, under God, over all 
persons, causes, and actions, civil or ecclesiastical. . . . "We 
gladly obey, and never willingly break any of her godly laws. 

' The mention of Johnson, as taken by the pursuivants (the "familiars" 
of the English Inquisition) "without any warrant at all," implies a distinc- 
tion in that respect between his case and Greenwood's, whom the petitioners 
had just mentioned as having been "four years in close prison." It may be 
supposed that at the time, "about a month since," when the two ministers 
were "apprehended," and "with bills and staves led to prison," Green- 
wood had been permitted, by tlie connivance of a friendly jailer, to go abroad 
for an evening, under the watch, perhaps, of a responsible attendant. 



A.D. 1592.] THE church' AND THE JAILS. 143 

. . . We never attempted, either secretly or openly, of our- 
selves, to suppress or innovate any thing, how enormous so- 
ever, by public authority established ; patiently suffering 
whatsoever the arm of injustice shall do vinto us for the 
same; doing such things as Christ hath commanded us in 
his holy worship ; but always leaving the reformation of the 
state to those that God hath set to govern the state." 

The simplicity of their confidence in the truth for which 
they were in prison, and in their ability to make the truth 
appear if they could be heard, is even pathetic. " We can 
but, in all humble manner, beseech, offer, and commit our 
ca*use and whole proceedings to be tried by the Scriptures 
of God, with any that is of contrary judgment, before your 
honorable presence." "We confidently undertake both to 
disprove their public ministry, ministration, worship, govern- 
ment, and proceedings ecclesiastical, established (as they 
vaunt) in this land, and also to approve our own present 
course and practice by such evidence of Scripture as our ad- 
versaries shall not be able to withstand ; protesting, if we 
fail herein, not only willingly to sustain such deserved pun- 
ishment as shall be inflicted upon us for our disorder and 
temerity, but also to become conformable to their line and 
proceedings if we overthrow not them — we will not say, if 
they overcome us." To that ofter or challenge they appended 
a modest suggestion of the serious responsibility which the 
"lords of the council" would incur by denying or any longer 
deferring " this Christian and peaceable course." 

In the mean time — till their cause should be decided after 
such a hearing — they made petition, in the name of God and 
of the queen, that "for the present safety of their lives" they 
might have " the benefit and help of her majesty's laws and 
of the public charter of the land — namely" (in their own 
words), " that we may be received unto bail, until we be by 
order of law convict of some crime deserving bands. ... It 
standeth not with your honorable estimation and justice to 
suffer us to be thus oppressed and punished — yea, thus to 



144 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VIII, 

perish — before trial and judgment, especially imploiing and 
crying out to you for the same. . . . However, we here take the 
Lord of heaven and earth, and his angels, together with your 
own consciences, and all present in all ages to whom this our 
supplication may come, to witness that we have here truly 
advertised your honors of our case and usage, and have in 
all humility offered our cause to Christian trial." ^ 

This was not the first memorial, nor the last, addressed to 
her majesty's council by " the persecuted church and serv- 
ants of Christ called Brownists." An earlier " supplication," 
more vehement in its tone, alleged that those "sworn and 
most treacherous enemies of God," "the prelates of this land 
and their complices," were then "detaining in their hands 
within the prisons about London — not to speak of other jails 
throughout the land — about threescore and twelve persons, 
men and women, young and old, lying in cold, in hunger, in 
dungeons, in irons," for no other oflense than that of going 
beyond other English Pi'otestants " in the detestation of all 
popery, that most fearful antichristian religion," and " draw- 
ing nearer in some points of practice unto Christ's holy order 
and institution." "Of which number they have taken, the 
Lord's day last past, , . . some fifty-six persons, hearing the 
word of God truly taught, praying, and praising God for all 
his favors showed unto us, and unto her majesty, your hon- 
ors, and the whole land, and desiring our God to be merciful 
unto us, and to our gracious princess and country." The 
persons taken were " employed in these holy actions, and no 
other, as the parties who disturbed us can testify." It is 
mentioned as a significant circumstance that " they were 
taken in the very same place where the persecuted church 
and martyrs were enforced to use the like exercise in Queen 

^ Strype, "Annals," iv., 94-98. This supplication, as given by Strype, 
is without date; but it is believed to have been written in January, 1593. 
Dr. Waddington (" Penry," p. 10.")) mentions December .'"), ir)92, as the time 
when Johnson and Greenwood were apprehended at the house of Edward 
Boys, which, the petitioners say, was "about a month since." 



A.D. 1592.] THE CHURCH AND THE JAILS. 145 

Mary's days ;" and the petitioners affirm for themselves, "We 
have as good a warrant to reject the ordinances of Anti- 
christ, and labor for the recovery of Christ's holy ordinances, 
as our fathers in Queen Mary's days," only a little more than 
thirty years ago. They complain that the prelates have com- 
mitted those "threescore and twelve persons" into close con- 
finement, " purposing, belike, to imprison them unto death, as 
they have done seventeen or eighteen others, in the same 
noisome jails, within these six years." " Bishop Bonner, 
Story, Weston" — the persecutors under Mary — "dealt not 
after this sort ; for those whom they committed close, they 
brought them, in short space, openly into Smithfield, to end 
their misery and to begin their never-ending joy ; whereas 
Bishop Aylmer, Dr. Stanhope, and Mr. Justice Young, with 
the rest of that persecuting and blood-thirsty faculty, will do 
neither of these." 

In the conclusion of their supplication, they said; "We 
crave for all of us but liberty either to die openly, or to live 
openly, in the land of our nativity. If we deserve death, it 
beseemeth the magistrates of justice not to see us closely 
murdered ; if we be guiltless, we crave but the benefit of our 
innocency, that we may have peace to serve God and our 
prince in the place and sepulchres of our fathers. Thus pro- 
testing our innocency, complaining of violence and wrong, 
and crying for justice on the behalf and in the name of that 
righteous Judge, the God of equity and justice, we continue 
our prayers unto him for her majesty and your honors."^ 

There was also a later memorial, written by another hand, 
less vehement in style than either of its predecessors, but 
stating the case of the persecuted church with a more con- 
vincing clearness. It began with " a brief declaration of our 
faith and loyalty to her majesty," in ten particulars ; and 
nothing more explicit in the way of profession could be rea- 

' Hanbury, i., 88-90. The date of this document is incidentally indicated 
by a reference in it to "the Lord's day last past, being the third of the fourth 
month [June], 1592." 

K 



146 oe:ses.is of tuk nkw t:>;c.LAXi> ohvkches. [cii. vm. 

sooably demanded. It made "'short auswei's unto two ru- 
mor? given out ag:aiust us:" iii"st, "the rumor that we differ 
from all the land in some opinions, gainsaying not only the 
bishops and whole elei*gy, but the magisti-ates and all the 
whole laud;" and, secondly, '' the rumor that we are heretic, 
schismatic, holding most ungodly opinions." As for the first 
of those rnmoi-s, while they prc>fess " ivverenoe in thought 
and deed" for the magistrates, they siiy frankly, " Indeed, we 
dissent from all our nation in some doctrines concei^ning the 
true worship, offices, and government of God in his chuivh;" 
but they protested against the conclusion that "^therefore no 
prison is too vile, nor any punishment too grievous'' for them. 
"'Seeing we have thus laid open our faith and loyalty to God, 
our queen, and our country, is there no more favor auvl civdit 
due to us than to languish away in prisons without bail or 
trial?" To the second, they answered, "'Right honoi-able, 
this rumor is false. In error it may be that we are, . . . but 
heretic or schismatic none can prove us." In this memorial, 
as in the others, their petitioir was that they might have a 
speedy trial accoi\Ung to law, or "' be bailed out of those 
noisome prisons" upon adequate security for their apj^>eai-ance 
to answer whatever charges might be preferred against them. 
These petitions seem reasonable to us in the nineteenth 
?entury. But there was one comprehensive and (as the lonls 
of the council thought) all-suffioieut reason for disi-egarding 
them. In the judgment of Burleigh, as well as of Whitgit\, 
the petitioners were obstinate men, who might at any time 
obtain their liberty by promising conformity and submission 
to the ecclesiastical laws, and renouncing their pretended 
right of instituting voluntary churches according to apostol- 
ical principles ai\d precedents. It seemed altogether re^ason- 
able that such men should lie perishing in prison, and that 
all the civil rights of English subjects, guaranteed by the 
great charter, should be broken down for the sake of keeping 
them there; for there was danger that others might be in- 
fected with the same preposterous notions of religious liberty 



A.I), 1592.] TFIK MMlTYll CIHIUCH. 147 

overtopping the queen'H supremacy in all aftuirs of religion. 
How unreasonable was it in these men that they would not 
be contented and quiet, but were importuning the council 
with their jjetitions! 

It was evident that the Separatists were not to be subdued 
without some greater severity. Men who had sliown that, 
when imprisoned ibr their opinions, they could not be hin- 
dered by their keepers from writing and in some way pub- 
lishing books against the deepest foundation of the queen's 
ecclesiastical establishment — men who would pray and 
l)reach even in the jails in which they were conlined for that 
identical offense of praying and preaching — were dangerous 
to the entire system of church government which Elizabeth 
had set up in England, and was determined to maintain. 
Neither the High Commission nor the Privy Council, neither 
the primate nor the queen, could tell whereunto this would 
grow. The spirit of John WyclifFe was abroad again. The 
Lollards and Gospelers, whom centuries of persecution un- 
der the papacy had not been able to exterminate, and who 
had fallen in for a while with the general movement of the 
nation revolting against Home, were rea))pearing under a 
new name, with more advanced ideas, and were resuming 
their old relations to the government, because the Reforma- 
tion, as managed by the government, had not been what 
they expected. Either the principle must be surrendered 
by which the Church of England had been reformed from a 
dependence on the jjope to a dependence on the (pieen — the 
great principle that all Englishmen were to believe and wor- 
ship according to the dictation of Elizabeth Tudor — or some 
effective measures must be taken to check the progress of 
the Separation. 

It should be remembered that all the persecution which 
these men — Barrowe, Greenwood, and their brethren — had 
been suffering, was purely ecclesiastical. The secular gov- 
ernment of England, as secvl<n\ had taken no part in it. 
Whatever penalties were inllicted for violations of the Act 



148 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. VIII. 

of Uniformity were inflicted in the administration of church 
government. There was, indeed, an Act of Parliament recog- 
nizing the queen's supremacy in the church and incorporat- 
ing that idea into the laws of England ; but the High Com- 
mission Courts authorized by that act were courts in which 
the queen's " commissioners for causes ecclesiastical " made 
inquisition by ecclesiastical methods. It was by the minis- 
try of those commissioners that the supreme ruler of the 
Church of England exercised "the full power, authority, 
jurisdiction, and supremacy in church "causes which hereto- 
fore the popes usurped and took to themselves." * 

All that the Separatists were sufiering was nothing but 
church government by church ofticers ; and therefore they 
demanded so importunately that the law of the state, and 
the justice meted out by secular courts, should protect them 
against the tyranny of what was called the church. 

There was a limit to the power of ecclesiastical courts, not 
excepting those of the High Commission. They could punish 
by fines and forfeitures — could deprive clergymen of their 
benefices — could arrest and imprison on suspicion — could in- 
terrogate their prisoner under oath to make him testify 
against himself — could hold him in a pestilential jail till he 
died, and could then cast out his body to be buried without 
a coroner's inquest ; but they could not mutilate the bodies 
of their victims, nor put them to death by the hangman. It 
was resolved, therefore, that some of those importunate Sep- 
aratists should be hanged by sentence of a secular court. 
The method of suppression which had been employed ten 
years before at Bury St. Edmund's was to be tried again. 

Accordingly Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood, after 
their six years of imprisonment, were indicted, with three 
others less conspicuous, " for publishing and dispensing se- 
ditious books," an off*ense which by an Act of Parliament 
more than ten years before had been made a felony, and was 

' Strype, " Whitgift," p. 2(50. 



A.D. 1593.] THE CHURCH AMD THE GALLOWS. 149 

therefore punishable with death. The statute, like many 
others of that reign, was aimed against the really seditious 
rumors and publications which the enemies of the Reforma- 
tion and of the queen were at the time dispersing through 
England, in the interest of the Roman Catholic pretender, 
Mary Queen of Scots. It was a perversion of the statute to 
a purpose which the enacting Parliament did not dream of 
when Copping and Thacker were indicted under it for dis- 
persing Robert Browne's pamphlets in behalf of voluntary 
churches. By a similar perversion, the five men above men- 
tioned were indicted for their share in the publication of 
books against the ecclesiastical establishment of England. 
The trial was not a protracted one. Only two days after 
the indictment they were found guilty, and sentenced to be 
put to death on the morrow. 

From a report made on the same day by the attorney-gen- 
eral (Egerton) to the lord-keeper (Hatton), it appears that 
one of the five prisoners, " with tears, aflirmed himself to be 
sorry that he had been misled." He was consequently par- 
doned. " The others," said the attorney-general, " pretend 
loyalty and obedience to her majesty, and endeavor to draw 
all that they have most maliciously written and published 
against her majesty's government, to the bishops and minis- 
ters of the church only, and not as meant against her high- 
ness ; which being most evident against them, and so found 
by the jury, yet not one of them made any countenance of 
submission, but rather persisted in that they be convicted 
of." So found by the jury! How could it be otherwise? 
The prisoners had frankly acknowledged their part in the 
writing and publication of the books; and the jury had been 
instructed from the bench that whatever was written and 
published in derogation of the queen's supremacy over all 
religious questions and affairs — or maintaining that Christian 
believers in London, under Elizabeth, had the same right of 
instituting voluntary churches which Christian believers in 
Rome had under Nei'o — was "most maliciously written and 



loO OKNKSIS OF THE NKAY ENGLAND CIIFKCHES. [ou. VUl. 

published against her majesty's government." Nothing was 
more obvious to all eoneerned than that those prisoners 
were heartily loyal to the queen's person and to her author- 
ity as a secular sovereign. 

The two less conspieuous confessors were permitted to 
live; but "Henry Barrowe, Gentleman," and "John Green- 
wood, Clerk," were to die. Barrowe, in the time between 
Ins condemnation and execution, wrote a letter, giving an 
account of the trial and what followed, "• to an honorable 
lady and countess of his kindred," probably the Countess 
of Warwick. In the hope that his friend might effectively 
represent his ease to the queen, lie appealed to her Christian 
sympathy. There is no evidence that she received the letter, 
or that, if she had received it, she could have had timely 
access to the sovereign for the purpose of making the de- 
sired representation. But the letter, or a copy of it, was 
retained among the members of the persecuted church ; and, 
eleven years afterward, it was published in Ilolland, giving 
almost all the information now attainable concerning the 
particulars of the trial and the singular experience of the 
prisoners atler their condemnation to death.^ 

Writing to that noble "lady and countess of his kindred," 
Barrowe said : " Though it be no new or strange doctrine 
unto you, right honorable lady, who have been so educated 
and exercised in the faith and fear of God, that the cross 
should be joined to the Gospel — tribulation and persecution 
to the faith and profession of Christ ; yet this may seem 
strange unto you, and almost incredible, that in a land pro- 
fessing Christ such cruelty should be offered imto the serv- 
ants of Christ, for the truth and Gospel's sake, and that by 
the chief ministers of the church, as they pretend." 

In making the statement of his case, he said: "For books 

^ Hanbury, i., 4S, 49; Waddington, "Penry," p. 117, 118; "Cong. 
Hist.," ii., 79. llatibury's quotations are fivm a copy published by Henry 
Ainsworth at Amsterdam, UKH, in an "Apology or Defense of such True 
Christians as ai-e commonly, but unjustly, called Browuists. " 



A.D. 1593.] niK OIllJllClI AND Tins CALLOWS. 



151 



written iiioio than tliree years since — after well-nigli six 
years' iniprisonniont sustained at their hands — liave these 
prehites, by tlieir velienient suggestions and accusations, 
caused us to be indicted, arraigned, condemned I'or writing 
and })ublisliing 'seditious' books, upon the statute made the 
twenty -third year of her majesty's reign." Troceeding 
thn)ugh all the particulars of the indictment, ho showed that 
there was nothing " seditious" in tlio books, " the matters be- 
ing men^ly ecclesiastical, controverted betwixt this clergy 
and us;" niid then he said, "But these answers, or whatever 
else I eoidd say or allege, prevailed notliing — no doubt, 
through the prelate's former instigations and malicious 
accusations. So that 1 with my four other brethren were 
. . . condemned, and adjudg(Hl to suffer death as lelons." 

He ])roceeiled with a narrative oi' what had taken place 
since their condemnation ; and then, with the urgency of one 
who prays that if it be possible tlie cup may pass from him, 
he ap})eale(l to the countess: " Let not any worldly and pol- 
itic impediments or unlikelihoods, no lleshly fears, diffidence, 
or delays, stoj) or hinder you from speaking to her majesty 
on our bi'half bc'fore she go out of this city ; lest we, by your 
delault Iieiciu, perish in lu'r absence;" for we "have no as- 
sured stay or respite of our lives, and our malignant adver- 
saries I are] ready to watch any occasion for the shediling of 
our blood, as we by those two near and miraculous escapes 
liave fouiul." 

Two "near and miraculous escapes" — what were they? 
"Early in the nu)riiing" of the day after the trial (" direction 
liaving been given for execution to-morrow as in case of like 
quality," and the night having come and gone with no inti- 
mation of *■* her majesty's pleasure to have execution defer- 
retl ") pre}>aration M'as made for the execution of the con- 
demned. They Avere brought out of the dungeon, their 
"irons smitten off,'' and they Avere "ready to be bound to 
the cart" — tasting the very bitterness of death — when a re- 
prieve came. After that " the bislioi)s," thinking, perhaps, 



152 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. VIII. 

that their courage might have failed, " sent certain doctors 
and deans" to exhort them and confer with them. "But," 
said Barrowe, " we showed them how they had neglected the 
time. We had been well-nigh six years in their pi-isons; 
never refused, but always humbly desired of them Christian 
conference . . . but never could obtain it ; that our time now 
was short in this world." Another week in the dungeon; 
and again, " early," the daylight struggling with the fog, 
Barrowe and Greenwood — the two less conspicuous offenders 
being left behind — are brought forth to die; again they un- 
dergo those grim preparations : they are bound to the cart, 
and "secretly," along the streets not yet astir with traffic, 
they are " conveyed to the place of execution " — " tied by 
the necks to the tree," and permitted to speak a few last 
words. Let Barrowe himself tell us how they speak : " Crav- 
ing pardon of all men whom we had any way offended, and 
freely forgiving the whole world, we used prayer for her 
majesty, the magistrates,' people, and even for our adver- 
saries." Then, at the last moment, when they have tasted 
again the bitterness of death, there comes another reprieve, 
and they go back to the dungeon. "Having almost finished 
our last words," says Barrowe, " behold ! one was, even at 
that instant, come with a reprieve for our lives from her maj- 
esty ; which was not only thankfully received of us, but with 
exceeding rejoicing and applause of all the people, both at 
the place of execution and on the ways, streets, and houses as 
we returned." 

There was another month of waiting in prison, with " no 
assured stay or respite." Could the prisoners have been 
subdued by the twice-encountered terrors of death — could 
they have been brought, by any method of persuasion, to re- 
nounce the truth which it was their mission to maintain — 
could they have been induced, as Robeit Browne had been, 

' 1 Tim. ii., 1, 2: "First of all . . . for kings, and all that are in au- 
thority. " 



A.D. 1593,] THE CHURCH AND THE GALLOWS. 153 

to dishonor their own testimony by a promise simply of sub- 
mission to tlie Church of England — there was no room to 
doubt that the reprieve Avould have been made a pardon. 
But the labor of " doctors and deans," with the gallows in 
the background of every exhortation and every syllogism, 
was unsuccessful. Those prisoners had seen the gallows, 
and had felt the cord around their necks ; but they had also 
seen a truth which the "doctors and deans" could not see, 
and for that truth they were willing to die. 

An explanation of those successive reprieves has been sug- 
gested, which is not improbable. It rests on the authority 
of a contemporaneous document — a letter from a person ap- 
parently well-informed to a friend. The first reprieve may 
have come in consequence of tlie suggestion in the attorney- 
general's report of the case to the lord-keeper, and its being 
kept back till the prisoners Avere " ready to be bound to the 
cart " may have been accidental — as, on the other hand, it 
may have been intended and arranged for eftect. The sec- 
ond is referred to the influence of the Lord Treasurer Bur- 
leigh, who conferred with the archbishop, and finding him 
" very peremptory," " gave him and the Bishop of Worcester 
some round taxing words, and used some speech with the 
queen, but was not seconded by any." Yet his personal in- 
fluence was such that the prisoners, ' as they were ready to 
be trussed up, were reprieved."' 

A certain bill, designed to make the law more eflEective 
against the Separatists, had passed the House of Lords, which 
might have been called in those days the H")use of Bishops; 
but in the House of Commons, Avhere Puritanism was pow- 
erful, it had encountered opposition, and had been subjected 
to amendment. It was about a month since the last reprieve 
of Barrowe and Greenwood, and they were still lying in jail 
and in irons, with "no assured stay or respite," when these 

' Letter of Thomas Phelipps to William Sterrell. In the British State- 
Paper Office, transcribed by Dr. Waddington, and printed by Mr. Hopkins 
in " Puritans and Queen Elizabeth," iii., 516, 517. 



154 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. VIII. 

proceedings, so distasteful to Elizabeth and her pi*elates, were 
had in the House of Commons. The next day, "early in 
the morning," the twice -reprieved prisoners were brought 
out once more ; their irons were once more smitten off; once 
more they were bound to the cart, and hastily driven to Ty- 
burn. Again, under the gallows, with the ropes about their 
necks, they prayed for the queen and for England, spoke 
their last words to the people gathered around the scaffold ; 
but there came no reprieve, and so they were hanged. ^ 

' Phelipps, in the letter above cited, adds: "It is plainly said that their 
execution proceeding [proceeded] of the malice of the bishops to spite the 
nether house, which hath procured tliem much hatred among the common 
people affected that way." 



A.D. 1592.] JOHN PENKY, THE MAETYR FOK EVANGELISM. 155 



CHAPTER IX. 

JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 

Eight months before the mavtyrdom of Barrowe and Green- 
wood (September, 1592), there came to London, from the 
north country, a yonng man of eminent gifts and eminent 
zeal, who, though he had been hunted out of EngLand into 
Scotland for his eiforts in behalf of reformation, had not yet 
become a Separatist. Being thrown into association with 
members of the little persecuted chnrcl), he was attracted to 
them by his sympathy with their afflictions, and soon adopt- 
ed their distinctive principle of " reformation without tarry- 
ing for any." This was John Penry ; and the story of his 
life illustrates the relation between the spirit of evangelism 
and the principle of voluntary church reformation. 

John Penry, or ApHenry, was a Welshman, born in the year 
of Elizabeth's accession to the throne (1555), At the age of 
nineteen, he became a student in the University of Cam- 
bridge. There his strong religious sensibilities, which at first 
had been fascinated by the Roman ritualism, were roused 
and enlightened by the Puritan influences which lingered in 
that seat of learning. Embracing with his whole heart the 
Gospel of personal salvation from sin by personal faith in 
Christ the Redeemer, he seems to have been, from the begin- 
ning of his new life, much more intent on a religions refor- 
mation, and especially on the evangelization of his benight- 
ed countrymen in Wales, than on any questions about vest- 
ments and ceremonies or about Church polity. Could he 
have had the religious liberty which was yet to be achieved 
for all the subjects of the British crown by ages of conflict, 
he would have been such a reformer as Whitefield and the 
Wesleys were in their day — an evangelist flaming with the 



156 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

love of souls and preaching with a tongue of fire. Little did 
he care for questions about prelacy and parity in the cler- 
ical body — still less for questions about clerical costumes 
and the other trumperies of the queen's ritual. His soul 
groaned over the ignorance and the sins of his Welsh coun- 
trymen, and his longing was that to the poor the Gospel 
might be preached. After taking his first degree in arts at 
Cambridge, he removed to St.Alban's Hall, in Oxford, where 
there happened to be, just then, more favor for men of Puri- 
tan sympathies ; and there he proceeded, and became Master 
of Arts when twenty-five years of age (1586). He declined 
the offer of ordination " without a call to the ministry by 
some certain church," and contented himself with such a 
license to preach as the university could give. 

His earliest publication was printed at Oxford in the course 
of the next year. It was, as he described it in his title-page, 
"A Treatise containing the Equity of an Humble Supplica- 
tion, which is to be exhibited to her Gracious Majesty and 
the High Court of Parliament, in the behalf of the country 
of Wales, that some order may be taken for the preaching 
of the Gospel among those people : Wherein is also set down 
as much of the estate of our people as without offense could 
he made known, to the end (if it please God) we may be 
})itied by those who are not of this assembly, and so they 
may be drawn to labor in our behalf" 

In an introductory address " to all that mourn in Zion un- 
til they see Jerusalem in perfect beauty, and, namely, to my 
fathers and brethren of the Chui'ch of England," he expressed 
himself with unaffected humility, yet with the unconscious 
dignity of one who, bringing a message from God, thinks 
only of the message. "It hath been the just complaint, be- 
loved in the Lord, of the godly in all ages, that God's eternal 
and blessed verity, unto whom the very heavens should stoop 
and give obeisance, hath been of that small reckoning and 
account in the eyes of the most part of our great men, as 
they valued it to be but a mere loss of time to yield any at- 




ST. alban's hall oxford (penrt's college). 



A.D. 1587.] JOHN PENRT, THE MAETYE FOR EVANGELISM. 157 

tendance thereupon. Hence it cometh to pass that the truth 
being at any time to be countenanced, none, very often, are 
found in the train thereof but the most contemptible and ref- 
use of men ; and because these also, being guilty unto them- 
selves of great infirmities (and foul sins many times), and 
not ignorant that affliction is the sequel of earnest and sin- 
cere profession, do pull their necks from the yoke, and their 
shoulders from the burden, the Lord is constrained very se- 
verely to deal with them before they can be gotten to go on 
his message. And (which is far more lamentable) inasmuch 
as the drowsy and careless security, the cold and frozen af- 
fections of the godly themselves, in most weighty affairs, is 
never wanting — the Lord suffereth his own cause to contract 
some spot from their sinful hands. These considerations, be- 
loved — but especially the latter — kept me back a great 
while from this action, which I have now, by the goodness of 
God, brought to this pass you see. It would be a grievous 
wound unto me, all my life long, if the dignity of a cause 
worthy to have the shoulders of all princes under the cope 
of heaven for its footstool, should be any whit diminished by 
my foul hands — which, notwithstanding, I profess to have 
washed, so far as their stains would permit." 

With such feelings did Penry enter on his life-work, pro- 
testing that God had thrust him upon that work almost 
against his will, yet comforted by the thought that "the 
honor of Jesus Christ" was involved in it. "My silence — 
though speech be to the danger of ni}' life — shall not betray 
his honor. Is he not a God ? Will he not be religiously 
worshiped ? Will he not have their religion framed ac- 
cording to his own mind ? Hath he not regard whether his 
true service be yielded him or not? If he have, woe be 
unto that conscience that knoweth this and keepeth it secret, 
or is slack in the promoting thereof." 

The one aim of the " Treatise " is announced on its de- 
scriptive title-page. The author described the moral and 
religious condition of his countrymen in Wales, " whose 



158 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

state," said be, " is so miserable at tbis day, tbat I tbink it 
were great indiscreetness for me to spare any speecb tbat 
were likely to prevail. Nay, I would to God my life could 
win them the preaching of the Gospel." He challenged the 
pity of all the godly for the "scars of spiritual misery" 
which his book described. He protested that " a conscience 
must be wrought in the people ;" and that, in order to this, 
the Gospel must be preached to them in their mother tongue 
by men whose experience had taught them what the Gospel 
is. He presented the details of a plan for the evangelization 
of Wales. To the coast, and to the border towns, where 
English was spoken, preachers should be sent from the uni- 
versities. Three hundred, he thought, might be found for 
that service, who would be competent after a little practice. 
Of these, j^erhaps a dozen would be Welshmen, capable of 
preaching in districts where the Welsh was the only spoken 
language. Besides these, he would have all Welsh ministers 
who were serving in England sent home to preach in their 
native tongue. He thought the effect in Wales would be 
that "a number of the idle drones," the non-preaching in- 
cumbents of livings, would learn to preach. But his scheme 
of evangelism was still more comprehensive. It included 
something of lay agency, and something even of what is now 
known as the voluntary principle. " There be many worthy 
men in the Church of England that now exercise not their 
public ministry ; these would be provided for among us. I 
hope they will not be unwilling to come and gain souls unto 
Jesus Christ. Private men, that never were of university, 
have well profited in divinity. These no doubt Avould prove 
more 'upright in heart' than many learned men. As for 
their maintenance, they whose hearts the Lord hath touched 
would thresh to get their living, rather than the people 
should want preaching. Our gentlemen and people, if they 
knew the good that ensueth preaching, would soon be 
brought to contribute." 

Such was the scheme for preaching the Gospel to his 



A.D, 1587.] JOHN PENEY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 159 

brethreu, the Carabrican Britons, which Penry proposed to 
bring before the queen and Parliament in a " humble sup- 
plication." His petition was in due time presented to the 
House of Commons by a member who affirmed that its 
rej)i'esentations concerning the condition of Wales were 
true. No objection was made to it, and nothing came of it 
in Parliament. But the book in which the bold scheme of 
evangelization had been laid before the public was, to Arch- 
bishop "Whitgift, an inexpiable offense. " Orders were is- 
sued, immediately, for the seizure of the book and the appre- 
hension of its author. Penry was thrown into prison, and 
the strictest injunction given to the jailer to keep him safe- 
ly. For a month he remained in doubt of the charge that 
Avas to be preferred against him " — just as Barrowe was put 
into prison, and kept there, without any definite charge on 
which he was to be tried, and against which he might pre- 
pare to defend himself. At the end of the month he was 
brought before the High Commission for an examination like 
those to which Barrowe and Greenwood were subjected.^ 
In other words, he was brought into the presence of Whit- 
gift and other dignitaries to be questioned and scolded like a 
schoolboy. His scheme was denounced by the archbishop 
as " intolerable." • The underlying idea of the obnoxious 
book was, " How shall they believe in Him of whom they 
have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher?" 
Having this conception of the way to save men, the author 
had intimated that the non-preaching clergy Avere not really 
ministers ; and that idea, the primate said, was " heresy." 
Penry's answer Avas, "I thank God that I ever knew such a 
heresy, as I will, by the grace of God, sooner die than leave 
it." Cooper, Bishop of Winchester, interposed : " I tell thee 
it is a heresy, and thou shalt recant it as a heresy." " Never," 
said the prisoner, " God willing, so long as I live." After 
some further imprisonment, he was, for that time, set at 



' Ante, p. !)4-l(;S. 

L 



160 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX, 

liberty.^ Evidently enough, such a man was likely to appear 
again before the queen's High Commissioners for causes ec- 
clesiastical. 

We can not but observe a sort of audacity, and almost 
defiance, in the answers of Separatists when a charge of 
heresy against any of their opinions was intimated by a 
bishop of the High Commission. England, under the preced- 
ing reign, had seen enough of burnings for heresy ; and it 
would hardly be safe for Queen Elizabeth's bishops- to follow 
too closely the example of Queen Mary's. One instance of 
that 2:)uuishment there had been since the restoration of 
Protestantism. About twelve years before this examination, 
Smithtield had been illuminated with the burning of two 
Dutch Anabaptists, whom a sentence from the Consistory 
Court of the Bishop of London had delivered for that pur- 
pose to the secular power, and it may be supposed that the 
eflect on the sensibilities of the people liad not been such as 
to encourage a repetition of the atrocity. When Whitgift 
attempted to terrify Barrowe by a suggestion of fire and 
fagots,^ and when he made the same experiment on Penry, 
the tone of their answers was as if they had said, " Hang 
us, if you will — burn us, if you dare." 

Certainly that first attempt in authorship had not been 
successful. The edition of five hundred copies had been 
seized, and the author imprisoned. What printer would dare 
to be concerned in the jDublication of another such book? 
Under that discouragement, Penry consulted with other ad- 
vanced Puritans in and about Northampton, where he was 
then residing with the wife whom he had lately married. 
Their consultations brought them to the determination that, 
so far as their cause was concerned, the art of printing should 
not exist in vain, and that, if they could not have a free 
press, they would have a secret jjress. Arrangements were 
therefore made for that purpose ; though on so small a scale 

' iStnpe, "'Annals,'' iii., pt. ii., 573, r.74. - Ajite, p. 102. 



A.D, 1587.] JOHN PENKY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 161 

that the entire establishment, when hunted out of one place, 
could be readily and safely transported to another. Penry's 
second publication seems to have been the first product of 
that secret press. It was entitled " A View of some Part of 
such Public Wants and Disorders as are in the Service of 
God within her Majesty's Country of Wales ; together with 
an Humble Petition unto the High Court of Parliament for 
their speedy redress." In its spirit and aim, as well as in its 
subject, it was like its predecessor. The author had lost 
nothing of his ardor, and he uttered his mind not less freely 
than before, ending his petition with these words : 

"Thus I have performed a duty toward the Lord, his 
church, my country, and you of this High Court, which I 
would do, if it were to be done again, though I were assured 
to endanger my life thereby. And be it known that, in this 
cause, I am not afraid of earth. If I perish — I perish. My 
comfort is that I know whither to go; and in that day 
wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be manifested, the sin- 
cerity of my cause shall appear. It is enough for me, how- 
soever I be miserable in regard to my sins, that yet unto 
Christ I both live and die ; and I purpose by his grace, if my 
life should be prolonged, to live hereafter not unto myself, 
but unto him and his church otherwise than hitherto I have 
done. The Lord is able to raise up those that are of purer 
hands and lips than I am, to write and speak in the cause of 
his honor in Wales. And the Lord make them, whosoever 
they shall be, never to be wanting in so good a cause ; the 
which, because it may be the Lord's pleasure that I shall 
leave them behind me in the world, I earnestly and vehe- 
mently commend unto them as by this last will and testa- 
ment. And have you, right honorable and worshipful of 
this Parliament, poor Wales in remembrance, that the bless- 
ing of many a saved soul may follow her majesty, your hon- 
ors and worships, overtake you, light upon you, and stick 
unto you forever. The eternal God give her majesty and 
you the honor of building his church in Wales; multiply 



162 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

the days of her peace over us ; bless her and you so in this 
life that in the life to come the inheritance of the kingdom 
of heaven may be her and your portion forever. So be it, 
good Lord !" 

The one thought ever present to John Penry was the 
preaching of the Gospel in his native mountains. His next 
pamphlet, issued from the same press, was an " Exhortation 
unto the Governors and People of her Majesty's Country of 
Wales, to labor earnestly to have the preaching of the Gos- 
pel planted among them." Perhaps, as he advanced, his ve- 
hement zeal grew more unsparing in its censures on the ex- 
isting order of things, and on those who were resijonsible for 
it. Yet he protested, "Let no man do me the injustice to 
report that I deny any members of Christ to be in Wales. I 
protest I have no such meaning, and would die upon the per- 
suasion that the Lord hath his chosen in my dear country; 
and I trust the number of them will be daily inci-eased." 
Yet he insisted on his principle, denounced by prelates as a 
heresy, that the non-preaching incumbents of livings were 
not ministers of Christ. " The outward calling," said he, 
" of these dumb ministers, by all the presbyteries in the 
world, is but a seal pressed upon Avater which will receive 
no impression." Li advising his countrymen how to apply 
and cany out the principle, he almost reached, unconsciously, 
the position of the Separatists. " The word preached, you 
see, you must have. Live according to it you must. Serve 
the Lord as he will, in every point, you must, or so be for- 
ever in your confusion. Difficulties in this case must not be 
alleged, for if you seek the Lord with a sure purpose to serve 
him, he hath made a promise to be found of you. Away, 
then, with these speeches : ' How can we be provided with 
preaching?' 'Our livings are impropriated — possessed by non- 
residents.' Is there no way to remove these dumb ministers 
but by supplication to her majesty, and to plant better in 
their stead? Be it you can not remove them. Can you be- 
stow no more to be instructed in the way of life than that 



A.D. 1588,] JOHN PENEY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 163 

which the law hath already alienated from your jjossession ? 
You never made of your tithes as of your own. For shame ! 
Bestow something that is yours, to have salvation made 
known unto you." So near did he come to the idea, which 
he had not yet accepted, of " reformation without tarrying 
for any." 

It Avas not in a frenzied thoughtlessness of consequences 
that he made this appeal to his countrymen. But the thought 
of personal danger, though manifestly present in his mind, 
was overborne by higher considerations. He told the story 
of that ancient city which, being at w^ar with the Athenians, 
"made a law that whosoever "would motion a peace to be 
concluded with the enemy should die the death ;" and how, 
when the city was j^ressed by the besiegers, and the people 
were beginning to perish with sword and famine, " a citizen, 
pitying the estate of his country, took a halter about his 
neck, came into the judgment-place, and spake : ' My masters, 
deal with me as you will — but, in any case, make peace with 
the Athenians, that my country may be saved by my death.' " 
Aware that the enemies of his cause had power to hang him, 
he said : " My case is like this man's. I know not my danger 
in these things. I see you, ray dear and native country, per- 
ish ; it pitieth me. I come with the rope about my neck to 
save you. Howsoever it goeth with me, I labor that you 
may have the Gospel preached among you. Though it cost 
my life, I think it well bestowed." 

These publications were the more obnoxious to the High 
Commission because the secret press from which they pro- 
ceeded was at the same time employed in printing a series 
of satirical pamphlets bearing the name of "Martin Marprel- 
ate." The memory of John Penry has suffered under the im- 
putation of sharing in the authorship of those pasquinades. 
Doubtless he had much to do Avith the secret press ; but 
nothing could be more unlike him than any participation in 
the authorship of the Marprelate tracts, or any sympathy with 
their characteristic spirit, and there is no evidence that he 



164 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

was in any way responsible for them. His work was of an- 
other sort. The weapons of his warfare were of another 
temper. All the authentic indications of his character show 
us an intense earnestness, a most unaffected seriousness, a 
singular frankness and fearlessness, and a most transparent 
simplicity. It would be unreasonable to believe, without the 
most conclusive proofs, that he had any connection with the 
anonymous " Martinists," other than that his pamphlets and 
theirs were printed at the same press. He said that he would 
not "feed the humors of the bus5^bodies who, increasing them- 
selves still more unto ungodliness, think nothing so well 
spoken or written as that which is satirical and bitingly done 
against the lord-bishops." Dr. Some, who wrote against Bar- 
rowe and Greenwood while they were in prison, and called 
them Anabaptists, had previously assailed Penry in a style 
of insolence which would have justified a severe reply. But 
Penry, instead of answering the scorner according to his folly, 
defended his own positions with a modesty and meekness 
most unusual in the controversies of those times. " Unless 
you alter your judgment," said he, "I can never agree with 
you in these points, because I am assured you swerve from 
the truth. Yet this disagreement shall be so far from mak- 
ing a breach of that love wherewith, in the Lord Jesus, I 
am tied to you, that I doubt not but we shall be one in that 
day when all of us shall be at unity in him that remaineth 
one and the self-same forever. Pardon me, I pray you. I 
deal as reverently as I may with you, retaining the majesty 
of the cause I defend." "I would be loth to let that syllable 
escape me that might give any the least occasion to think that 
I carry any other heart tOAvard you than I ought to bear to- 
ward a reverend, learned man, fearing God." 

There was little need of imputing to Penry the authorship 
of the Marprelate tracts in order to find matter of accusation 
against him before the High Commission. In successive pub- 
lications, to which his own name was always subscribed, he 
had denounced the established hierarchy, not — as other Pu- 



A. D. 1589.] JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 165 

ritans were denouncing it — because its methods of govern- 
ment and its forms of worship were inconsistent with Chris- 
tian simplicity, but for the deeper reason that it hindered and 
opposed the preaching of the Gospel to the people. " The 
least part," said he, " of the sin of our bishops hath been in 
the maintenance of unprofitable, superstitious, and corrupt 
ceremonies. If they would but yield free passage unto the 
truth, and her authority unto the church, in other matters, 
they should not be greatly molested for these things. Our 
controversies arise, because they are not permitted, with the 
consent of the servants of God, to smother, persecute, de- 
prave, and corrupt the truth of that religion which in name 
they profess, and to undermine and lead captive the church 
of God in this land." Such an adversary, continually imput- 
ing to the ecclesiastical establishment and its rulers the no- 
torious " famine of the word of God," was pre-eminently ob- 
noxious. The emissaries of the High Commission were on 
the scent of the secret press which was so dangerous a ma- 
chine, and he was suspected of connection with it. His 
study, at Northampton, was searched in his absence (Jan. 29 
O. S. =Feb. 7 N. S., 1589) by an officer of that arbitrary court, 
who took away with him all such printed books and papers 
" as he himself thought good ;" and then, at his departure, 
charged the mayor of the town to apprehend Penry as a 
traitor, giving out that he had found in that search " printed 
books and also writings which contained treason." 

Standing for those traditions of English liberty which 
were imperiled in his person, Penry immediately published 
another tract, " The Appellation of John Penry unto the 
High Court of Parliament, from the vile and injurious deal- 
ing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, his col- 
leagues in the High Commission, Avherein the Complainant, 
submitting himself and his cause unto the determination of 
this honorable assembly, craveth nothing else but either re- 
lease from trouble and persecution or just trial." Admitting, 
frankly, that he had labored to destroy "the wicked hierarchy 



166 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX, 

with whatsoever coiTuption dependeth thereon," he denied 
that he had used or sought to use any other force than truth. 
He made a most earnest profession of his h:>yalty. "I have 
been," said he, " all the days of my life at my studies. 1 
never, as yet, dealt in any cause, more or less, in any thing 
that any way concerneth civil estate and government ; and 
as for attempting any thing against her majesty's person, I 
know that Satan himself dares not be so shameless as to in- 
tend any accusation against me on that point." "The cause 
is the cause of God : it is the cause of the church, and so the 
cause of many thousands of the most trusty, most sure, most 
loving subjects that her majesty hath ; whose hearts, by the 
repelling of this my suit, must be utterly discouraged and 
thrown down. My only suit and petition is, that either I 
may have assurance of quietness and safety ; or that, the 
causes of my trouble being laid open by mine adversaries, 
I may receive the punishment of my offenses. I crave no 
immunity; let me have justice — that is all I crave." 

A few days after that search and seizure, a royal procla- 
mation was issued (Feb. 13 = 23) against seditious and schis- 
matical books. The books aimed at Avere described as " tend- 
ino- to brincr in a monstrous and dano-erous innovation of all 
manner of ecclesiastical government now in use, and, with 
a rash and malicious purpose, to dissolve the state of tlie 
prelacy, being one of the three ancient estates of the reahn 
under her highness, whereof her majesty mindeth to have a 
reverent regard." Of course, detectives were immediately 
put upon a search for such books, and for their authors and 
publishers. The time had come when Penry must find a 
refuge not only for liimself, but for his wife and child. An 
order for his arrest had been issued from the Privy Council. 
He fled with his family into Scotland, where he was kindly 
received, inasmuch as he had not become a Separatist like 
Robert Browne, who was there five years before, and whose 
antipathy to the Kirk in the northern kingdom was hardly 
less than to the Established Church in England. 



A.D. 1590-92.] JOHN PENRY, MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 167 

Puritanism, such as Cartwright had testified for, was pre- 
dominant in Scotland, and Penry was permitted to preach 
there. In addition to his preaching, he translated from the 
Latin, and published, with a characteristic preface, a theo- 
logical work entitled " Propositions and Principles of Divin- 
ity disputed in the University of Geneva." But Queen 
Elizabeth thought that a fugitive for whose arrest an order 
had been issued from her Privy Council ought not to find 
safety by going beyond the Tweed, and, at her instigation,^ 
the King of Scotland (afterward James I. of England) issued 
an order (Aug. 6, 1590) that "John Penry, Englishman," 
should depart from the kingdom within ten days, and not 
return under pain of death. But by the friendly interven- 
tion of the Scottish clergy, the public proclamation which 
was necessary to make the order eflective was in some way 
" staid ;" and the refugee remained in Scotland till he had 
printed for English readers another of his obnoxious books, 
"A Treatise wherein it is manifestly proved that Keforma- 
tion, and those who are sincerely for the same, are unjustly 
charged with being enemies to her majesty and the state." 

After more than three years in Scotland, he returned, with 
his family, to England, He was not ignorant of the peril 
which he encountered, the order from the Privy Council for 
his arrest being still in force. It had been in his thoughts to 
obtain, if possible, an interview with the queen — in whom 
he seems always to have had a most loyal confidence, and 
to beg of her the liberty of personally preaching the Gospel 
in his beloved Wales. It was with some such expectation 
lingering in his mind that lie arrived at London. Till now 

' In an autograph letter to her " deare brother the King of Scotland," 
Elizabeth, after entreating him to "stop the mouths, or make shorter the 
tongues of such ministers as dare to make oraison [prayer] in their pulpits 
for the persecuted in England for the Gospel," referred him.to her messen- 
ger for particulars, "beseeching you," said she, ^^not to give harbor room to 
vagabond traitors and seditious im^entors, but to return them to me, or banish 
them your /awe?. "— Waddington, " Penry," p. 58. 



168 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

(Sept., 1592) he had been only a Puritan, longing and striving 
for a further reformation of the National Church by national 
authority ; but now he was prepared to accept, in all its ap- 
plications, the emancipating principle of " Reformation with- 
out tarrying for any." Before he left Scotland, he had 
knowledge of the jjersecuted disciples at and around Lon- 
don, who, instead of agitating for a reformation of the state 
church, were attempting to refqrm themselves by instituting 
a voluntary church after the manner of the primitive disci- 
ples. To their fellowship he was attracted by his religious 
sympathies. When the church completed its organization, 
he was invited, notwithstanding the recency of his arrival 
among them, to become one of its officers ; but he declined 
the service. " It hath been my purpose," he said, " to era- 
ploy my small talent in my poor country of Wales, where I 
know that the poor people perish for want of knowledge ; 
and this was the only cause of my coming out of that coun- 
try where I was, and might have stayed privately all my life 
— even because I saw myself bound in conscience to labor 
for the calling of my poor kindred and countrymen unto the 
knowledge of their salvation in Christ." But though he 
sustained no office among his brethren, he was active to 
promote their spiritual welfare. Sometimes he preached in 
their assemblies. Sometimes their meetings were held in 
his house. He could not print, but he wrote a " History of 
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram — applied to the prelacy, min- 
istry, and church assemblies of England;" which was circu- 
lated in manuscript copies, and was, at last, published in a 
printed edition fifteen years after the author's death. That ♦ 

book, like his other works on the same theme, was addressed 
to the Parliament ; but the title of it implies that he no long- 
er recognized the ecclesiastical establishment of England as 
a Christian church. 

On the day which intervened between the indictment of 
Barrowe and Greenwood and their condemnation to death 
(March 22 = 31), Penry was arrested, the place of his con- 



A.D. 1593.] JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 169 

ceahnent having been discovered by treachery, A few days 
after his arrest, his wife, accompanied by a friend (a widow 
at whose house he had preached his last sermon), presented 
to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal a humble petition in 
his behalf " Your suppliant's poor husband," said she, " is 
at this present kept close prisoner, , . . none suffered to 
come to him to bring him such things as are necessary for 
the preservation of his life and sustenance — he of himself 
being a very weak and sickly man, not able long to endure 
so hard and unreasonable imprisonment without hazard of 
his life." "Most humbly, therefore, she beseecheth your 
honor, for God's cause, in consideration of her poor hus- 
band's sickly and weak state, that it would please you to 
grant your honor's warrant that she may have access unto 
her poor husband, to administer such necessaries unto him 
as she may, for the preservation of his life." The petition 
was ineffectual; and the incident is on record that the widow 
who went with that sorrowful wife to stand by her when 
she presented her petition, was seized and committed to the 
Gate-house prison, simply for "being with Penry's wife 
when she presented the petition to the Lord Keeper." 

It should, nevertheless, be told to the honor of the jailer, 
that he seems to have been as kind toward those who M'ere 
imprisoned for conscience'' sake as his responsibility to his 
superiors would permit him to be. Penry himself, not long 
after his wife's unsuccessful petition, said of that keeper of 
the prison, " They do him injury who say that I have want- 
ed either meat or drink competent since I was committed 
to his custody." He thought himself more likely to perish 
with cold than with hunger. " My wife, indeed," he added, 
"can not be permitted to come unto me; she knoweth not 
how I fare ; and, therefore, she may be in fear that I am, in 
regard of meat and drink, hardlier used than I am or have 
been." 

Having passed nearly two weeks in prison, and knowing 
what was before him, he began to write his latest counsels 



1 10 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

and farewells to his wife, to his little children, and to the 
church. Strangely, and as if by some special providence of 
God, those memorials have been preserved to history. Like 
the Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy, written from a pris- 
on, and when the writer could say, " I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand," they are 
full of what no devoutly Christian soul can fail to recog- 
nize as, in some true sense, a divine inspiration. As we read 
them, we hear the sighing of the prisoner, we feel the beat- 
ing of his heart, we catch, as from his eye, the gleam of his 
heroic constancy. Those testamentary letters of his can hard- 
ly be matched in all the martyrology of Christendom for 
unaffected and unconscious grandeur of Christian faith, or 
for utterances of tenderness rippling the calm surface with 
gushes from "unsounded deeps" of human sorrow. 

The letter to his wife was dated on the fifteenth day of 
his imprisonment (April 6). AYhile it is too long to be in- 
troduced without abridgment into this narrative, some por- 
tions of it must have place as illustrations of what tlie man 
was, and what the cause in which he suffered : 
. "To n\j beloved wife, Hellenor Penry, partaker with me 
in this life of the sufferings of the Gospel of the kingdom and 
l^atience of Jesus Christ, and resting with me in undoubted 
hope of that glory which shall be revealed — all strength and 
comfort, with all other spiritual graces, be multiplied through 
Jesus Christ my Lord. 

"I see my blood laid for, my beloved, and so my days and 
testimony drawing to an end, for aught I know ; and there- 
fore I think it my duty to leave behind me this testimony 
of my love to so dear a sister and so loving a wife, in the 
Lord, as you have been to me. 

" First, then, I beseech you, stand fast in the truth which 
you and I profess at this present in much outward discour- 
agement and danger. Let nothing draw you to be subject 
unto Antichrist, in any of his ordinances. Let your soul and 
your body be far from those assemblies which yield either 



A.D. 1593.] JOHN PENET, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. iVl 

known or secret submission unto the ordinances of the 'beast' 
— that is, to receive his ' mark ' either in the right hand or 
in the forehead." . . . 

"Again, my beloved, continue a member of that holy so- 
ciety whereof you and I are ; where the Lord in his or- 
dinances reigneth : for here, and in all such assemblies, the 
Lord dwelleth by the presence and power of his Spirit. Here 
he is a mighty protector, and a defense ready at hand ; and 
his ordinances, you know, he hath commanded to be great- 
ly observed. Our souls are to rejoice in those ways more 
than in all substance and treasure, and the loving kindness 
of the Eternal is forever toward them, and their seed, that re- 
member his ordinances to do them," . . . 

" My dear wife and sister, look not at any eai'thly thing ; 
consecrate yourself wholly — both soul and body, husband, 
children, and whatsoever you have — unto the Lord your 
God. Let them not be dearer unto you than God's service 
and worship. Know it to be an unspeakable preferment for 
you that he vouch safeth to take either yourself or any of 
yours to sufler afflictions with him and his Gospel. . . . Fear 
not the want of outward things. He careth for you. The 
Lord is my God and yours, and the God of our seed. I know, 
if you and our poor children continue, that you shall see a 
blessed reward in this life for those small and weak sufTer- 
ings of ours for the interest and right of Christ Jesus ; for I 
am assured that the Lord will give a breathing time of com- 
fortable rest unto his poor church in this life. Li the mean 
time, wait patiently the Lord's leisure." . . . 

"Pray with your poor family and children morning and 
evening, as you do. Instruct them and your maid in the good 
ways of God, so that no day pass over your head wherein 
you have not taught them (especially her) some one principle 
of the truth. Think the time greatly gained, as I have often 
told you, that is spent in the word of the Lord. Among 
other places of the word wherein I Avould have you be con- 
versant in regard of these times, I pray you read the 3lih 



172 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

Psalm ; Isa, Ix,, and Ixi., Ixii., Ixiii. ; Matt. xx. ; Exod. xxii., 
22 ; Job xxiv. to xxvii." ' 

. . . "Above all things, pvay that he would restore beau- 
ty unto the church, and overthrow the religion of the Roman 
Anticlirist in every part thereof. Observe your own special 
infirmities and wants, and be earnest with the Lord that he 
would do them away and consume them by the power of 
his Spirit. Remember me also, and my brethren in bonds, 
that the Lord would assist us with the strength and comfort 
of his Spirit to keep a good conscience, and to bear a glo- 
rious testimony to the end. Yea, be not void of hope but I 
may be restored again by your prayers ; and therefore, also, 
be earnest Avith him for my deliverance. 

"If the Lord shall end my days in this testimony, ... I 
am ready and content with his pleasure. Keeja yourself, my 
good Helen, here with this poor church. You may make all 
good refuge and stay here, as any widow else, for your out- 
ward estate. Though you could not, yet I know that you 
had rather dwell under the wings of the God of Israel in 
poverty, with godly Ruth, than to possess kingdoms in the , 
land of Moab ; and what shift soever you make, keep our | 
poor children with you, that you may bring them up your- 
self in the instruction and information of the Lord. I leave 
you and them, indeed, nothing in this life but the blessing of 
ray God, and his blessed promises, made unto me, a poor, 
wretched sinner, that my seed, my habitation, and family 
should be blessed and happy on the earth ; and this, my sis- 
ter, I doubt not shall be found an ample portion both for 
you and them ; though you know that in hunger often, in cold 
often, in poverty and nakedness, we must make account to 
profess the Gospel in this life. Teach them even now, I be- 
seech you, in their youth, that lesson, indeed, Avhich was the 
last that I taught them in word ; that is, if they would reign 



' If the reader will open his Bible at the passages thus referred to, he will 
find himself better acquainted than before with Fenry's interior life. 



A.D. 1593.] JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 173 

with Christ, they must suffer with him. Teach them not to 
look for great things in this life, but every day to make ac- 
count that they are to yield up tlieir lives, and whatsoever 
they have, for their truth. While their affections are yet 
green, let them have instruction out of the Word, and correc- 
tions meet for them. Yet you know that parents must not 
be bitter unto their children ; especially smite not the elder 
wench overhard, because you know the least Avord will re- 
strain her. When they are capable of any hardy labor, I 
know you will not let them be idle. Let them learn both to 
read and also to work. Howsoever it be with them in your 
care — or under the hands of others — I, their father, do here 
charge them, when they come to years of discretion, as they 
will answer at that great day of judgment, that they join 
themselves with the true profession and church of Christ 
wherein I now go before them — the which charge of mine 
that they now keep, I beseech you, good wife, to put them 
often in mind of the same. . . . And withal, be careful, in case 
you should not be able to keep them all with you, that they 
are brought up with some of the church, with bread and 
water, rather than to be clad in gold with any, how forward 
soever they seem to jjlease, that yield obedience unto the an- 
tichristian ordinances. 

" I know, my good Helen, that the burden which I lay 
ujDon thee, of four infants, whereof the eldest is not four years 
old, will not seem in any way burdensome unto thee. Yea, 
thou shaft find that our God will be a father to the father- 
less and a stay unto the Avidow. If, my dear sister, you are 
married again after my days, choose that, first, he with whom 
you marry be of the same faith and holy profession with 
you. Look not so much to wealth and estimation in the 
world ; yet rather choose many blessings than one, if you 
may ; but only respect the fear of God and the meetness of 
the party. 

"Thus — having hitherto disburdened myself of my dut}' 
toward you, and care over you and our poor children, in 



174 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

some part — to come unto myself, I am, thank God, of great 
comfort in bim, though under great trials of my weakness. 
. . . But in regard of men, and in respect of the cause of God 
wherein I stand, I fear not any j^ower or strength of man 
whatsoever ; and I am, this hour, most willing to lay down 
my life for the word of my testimony; and I trust I shall be 
unto the end." 

Having narrated some of his experiences as a prisoner in 
the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities, he said : " They 
were so lamentably ignorant [of the Scriptures], and lay 
wait for blood so cruelly, that certainly the Lord's hand is 
not far off. The Lord show mercy unto us and them — from 
my heart I say it. I can not but think that they thirst after 
my blood, therefore pray for me, and desire all the church to 
do the same. 

"And if I be offered upon this sacrifice, I pray thee, ray 
good Helen, that all the disjjersed pajjers which I have writ- 
ten in this cause, and are yet out of the enemies' hands, may 
be published unto the world after my death, together with 
the letters which I have written in the same cause, that are 
of any moment; though they be imperfect, yet the enemies' 
mouths Avill be stopped by that means, and no small light be 
given unto the cause." . . . 

"To draw to an end, salute the whole church from me, 
especially those in bonds, and be you all much and heartily 
saluted. Let none of them be dismayed; the Lord will send 
a glorious issue unto Zion's troubles. Yet you must all be 
prepared for sufferings — I see likelihood. Let not those 
which are abroad [not yet imprisoned] miss to frequent their 
holy meetings. 

" Salute my mother and yours in Wales, my brethren, sis- 
ters, and kindi-ed there. My God knoweth — yea, yourself 
know — how earnestly and often I have desired that the Lord 
would vouchsafe my service in the Gos2:)el among them, to 
the saving of their souls for evermore unto him. Salute your 
parents and mine, and our kindred in Northamptonshire — 



A.D, 1593.] JOHN PENEY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 175 

with my poor kinsman, Jenkin Jones — and Mr. Davidd also, 
though I had not thouglit that any outward respect would 
have made him to withdraw his shoulders from the Lord's 
ways — but the Lord will draw him forward in his good 
time. Salute all ours in Scotland, upon the borders, and ev- 
ery way northward. . . . Let it not be known unto any, save 
unto the party who shall read this unto you, that I have 
written at all as yet. I got means, this day, to write this 
much, whereof no creature living knoweth," 

To that letter, written " in great haste, with many tears, 
and yet in great spiritual comfort," he subscribed his name : 
" Your husband for a season, and your beloved brother for 
evermore, John Peni'y, an unworthy witness of Christ's tes- 
tament against the abominations of the Roman Antichrist and 
his followers — sure of victory by the blood of the Lamb." 

Were these to be his last words to his young wife, the 
heroic mother of those little children ? He could not send 
the letter without a postscript : " Li any case, let it not be 
known that I have written unto you — be sure thereof.* I 
would wish you to go to the judges for me, with your chil- 
dren, desiring them to consider your hard case and mine. 
Yea, and I would have you, if you can, go to the queen with 
them, beseeching her, for God's cause, to show her wonted 
clemency unto her subjects — with my lord treasurer and 
other of her council whom you think [likely] to regard your 
and ray cries ; for sure my life is sought for. I am ready — 
pray for me, and desire the church to pray for me, much and 
earnestly. The Lord comfort thee, good Helen, and strength- 
en thee. Be not dismayed. I know not how thou dost for 
outward things, but my God will provide. My love be with 
thee now and ever, in Christ Jesus." 

' Penry's anxiety on this point may have been lest he shonld compromise 
in some way the friend (possibly the jailer himself — see p. 169) to whom he 
was indebted for the privilege of writing. ' ' The party who shall read this 
unto " Mrs. Penry, may have been the same person, desirous of retaining in 
his own hands the evidence of his kindness toward the prisoner. 

M 



176 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

He found time and means for another letter to " good 
Helen," of which a fragment has been preserved. " I trust 
that my mother even will lay up some things for a store 
unto our poor children against they come of age — if they 
will give you and them nothing in the mean time. I will 
write unto them, if I can by any means, for this purpose. 
This is a cold and poor stay, my dear sister and wife, I 
leave you and my poor fatherless mess ; but my God and 
yours (doubt you not) will provide abundantly for you and 
them if you serve him, as I doubt not but you will. But, my 
good wife, for his name's sake, and that with tears, take heed 
that neither you nor they return again into Egypt, whence, 
of the Lord's great favor, you and I am escaped — you know 
what I mean. Will you, or my children, join with the cor- 
ruptions that are dyed with your husband's and father's 
blood? I am not jealous of you, my good wife, but warn 
you and my children. Oh ! it is good to stay the Lord's 
leisure, and to sufier with him. Li the mean time, he will 
overthrow Babel and build Zion again." 

The advice which he gave to his wife concerning their 
children was not a sufficient expression of his paternal so- 
licitude for them. Looking beyond the years of their father- 
less childhood to the time when they would be able to ap- 
preciate and apply his dying counsels, he prepared a more 
elaborate epistle (April 10), addressed "To my daughters 
when they come to years of discretion and understanding." 
Dated only four days after the letter to his wife, and written 
as by stealth, it must have been the principal occupation of 
those intervening days. It begins with a few words, weighty 
and well chosen, concerning their personal trust in Christ and 
their obedience to the God of their father. It then warns 
them against "the ordinances and inventions of Antichrist's 
kingdom," and charges them " to be subject unto all that 
holy order which Christ Jesus hath appointed for the ruling 
of his church and members here upon earth." After remind- 
ing them of their father's six years' endurance of persecution 



A.]).] 593.] JOHN PENEY, THE UrAETYR FOE EVANGELISM. 171 

for Christ, and of their motlier's partnership witli her hus- 
band in testimony and in sufferings, it proceeds : 

" Repay her, then, by your dutifuhiess and obedience, some 
part of that kindness which you owe unto her. Be obedient 
to her in word and in deed ; and miss not to be the staff of 
her age wlio is now the only stay and support that is left 
unto you in your youth and infancy. I now leave four of 
you upon her, having nothing to speak of to leave her and 
you, save only that everlasting and durable fountain of the 
Lord's blessed providence and promises who relieveth the 
fatherless and the widow. The eldest of you is not yet four 
years old, and the youngest not four months ; and therefore 
every way shall you be indebted to that mother who will think 
it no intolerable burden to bear and take the care of you all." 

After advising them to be guided by their mother's ad- 
vice in all things, and especially in bestowing themselves if 
God should grant them " the favor to enter into the holy 
state of matrimony," the testamentary epistle proceeds: "If 
she will place you in any service, think not honest labor too 
mean for you, nor wholesome diet too hard, nor clothing that 
may cover you and keep you warm over-base for you ; but 
bless God that he provideth you food and raiment. . . . What- 
soever becometh of yon in outward regard, keep yourselves 
in this poor church where I leave you, or in some other holy 
society of the saints. I doubt not but my God will stir np 
many of his children to show kindness unto my faithful sister 
and wife, your mother, and also unto you, even for my sake. 
Although you should be brought up in never so hard service, 
yet, my dear children, learn to read, that you may be con- 
versant, day and night, in the word of the Lord. If your 
mother be able to keep yon together, I doubt not but you 
shall learn both to write and read by her means. I have left 
you four Bibles, each of you one ; being the sole and only 
patrimony that I have for you. . . . Frequent the holy ex- 
ercises and meetings of the saints in any case; for there is 
the Lord most powerful in the holy ministry of his word; 



178 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CIIUKCIIES. [CH, IX. 

and you must remember that the Lord regardetli, loveth, and 
blesseth the public worship more than any private exercise 
of religion whatsoever." . . . 

"Show yourselves loving and kind unto all the saints of God, 
being ready to lay down your lives to do good unto the Lord's 
poor church and members here upon earth. Whatsoever you 
have, bestow somewhat thereof for the relief of the church. 
Diminish from your diet and apparel, that you may bestow 
the same upon the church and members of Christ, for the 
maintenance of the true worship and service of God among 
them." . , . 

In these testamentary counsels of the expectant martyr 
to his children, he did not forget his "people and kindred in 
the flesh." Of the Welsh nation he said: "I trust the time 
is coming wherein God will show mercy unto them by caus- 
ing the true light of the Gospel to shine among them ; and, 
my good daughters, pray you earnestly unto the Lord — when 
you come to know what prayer is — for this, and be always 
ready to show yourselves helpful unto the least child of that 
poor country that shall stand in need of your loving support. 
In any case, repay the kindness, if you be able, which 'I owe 
unto my nearest kindred there — as to my mother, brethren, 
and sisters, and the others, who, I am persuaded, will be most 
kind toward you and your mother, unto their ability, even 
for my sake. Be an especial comfort, in my stead, unto the 
gray hairs of my poor mother, whom the Lord used as the 
only means of my [support] in the beginning of my studies, 
whereby I have come unto the knowledge of that most pre- 
cious faith in Jesus Christ, in the defense whereof I stand." 

Having exhorted them, in like manner, to pray much and 
often for the queen, under whose reign he had come to the 
knowledge of the truth for which he was to suffer — to show 
kindness to all strangers, especially to " the people of Scot- 
land, where," said he, " I, your mother, and a couple' of you 

^ Two, then, of the four children, Iiad been born since his return from Scot- 
land, and were " not yet four months old." 



A.D. 1593.] JOHN PENRT, THE MAKTYR FOE EVANGELISM. 179 

lived as strangers" — to be "tender-hearted toward the widow 
and the fatherless," inasmuch as he was likely to leave them 
fatherless and their mother a widow; and having thus "un- 
burdened [his] careful soul" in part, he brought that sad 
parental service to its close. The broken phrases, the uncor- 
rected lapses of the pen, betray the depth and conflict of 
his feelings. " I have written this," he said, " in that scarcity 
of paper, ink, and time, that I could do it no otherwise than 
first it came into my mind and set it down, . . . but you 
may take instruction by it and follow it, that the blessing of 
God may light" — as "upon the posterity of Jonadabthe son 
of Rechab," so — " upon the children of John Penry for the obe- 
dience they have yielded unto their father's godly command- 
me-nt and counsel." "Thus . . . while I am ready . . . not 
only to be imprisoned, but even to die for the name and truth 
of the Lord Jesus which I have maintained, and while I ac- 
knowledge with a loud and triumphant voice that the afllic- 
tions of this present life are not worthy of the glory which 
shall be revealed unto us, I betake you, my dear children, and 
your loving mother, unto your most undoubted and careful 
Redeemer in Jesus Christ our Lord, whom be blessed forever 
and ever." Then, dating his letter "From close prison, with 
many tears, and yet in much joy of the Holy Ghost," he wrote 
his name, " John Penry, a poor witness in this life against the 
abominations of the Roman Babel." 

On the day on which he subscribed that letter, the prisoner 
underwent, before two of the High Commissioners, a long ex- 
amination, in which he witnessed a good confession. His an- 
swers were prompt, clear, and resolute. One of them may 
serve as a specimen. In reply to the accusation, " You labor 
to draw her majesty's subjects from their obedience unto her 
laws, and from this Church of England," he said : " Nay, I per- 
suade all men unto obedience to my prince and her laws; 
only I dissuade all the world from yielding obedience and 
submission unto the ordinances of the kingdom of Antichrist, 
and would persuade them to be subject unto Jesus Christ 



180 GENESIS OF THE NEAV ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. IX. 

and bis blessed laws. And I know tliis enter])rise to be so 
far from being repugnant unto ber majesty's laws, as I assure 
myself tbat the same is warranted tbereby. Her majesty 
hath granted, in establishing and confirming the Great Char- 
ter of England (whereunto, as I take it, the kings and queens 
of this land are sworn when they come to the crown), that 
the Church of God, under her, should have all her rights and 
liberties inviolable forever. Let the benefit of this law be 
granted unto me and otiiers of my brethren, and it shall be 
found that we have done nothing but what is warrantable 
by her laws." Standing on the 3fagna Charta as the su- 
preme law of the land, the sacred compact between the sov- 
ereign and the people, renewed and sworn to at every coro- 
nation, he insisted that, under Queen Elizabeth, "the Cinirch 
of God" — not the Roman ])Ower, nor the English prelacy and 
priesthood, but the Church as instituted by Christ himself, with 
"her rights and liberties" defined in the Scriptures — was free. 
After that inquisitorial examination, he submitted to the 
commissioners a written profession of his loyalty toward the 
government and person of the queen, and of his faith toward 
God. No man can read that document, so clear, so calm, so 
dignified in its earnestness, and not be convinced of its per- 
fect sincerity. In bringing it to a close, the heroic confessor 
said : " Death, I thank God, I fear not — in this cause espe- 
cially — for I know that the sting of death is taken away, and 
that they are blessed which die in the Lord for witnessing 
against the former corruptions. Life I desire not, if I be 
guilty of sedition — of defaming and disturbing her majesty's 
peaceable government." But while thus professing his read- 
iness to die, he went on to say : " I most humbly and earnestly 
beseech their honors and worships, in whose hands this writ- 
ing of mine shall come, to consider that it is to no purpose 
that her majestj^'s subjects should bestow their time in learn- 
ing — in study and meditation of the AVord — in reading the 
writings and doings of learned men and of the holy martyrs 
wliich have been in former ages, especially the writings pub- 



A,D. 159;3.] JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 181 

lished by her majesty's authority — if they may not, without 
danger, profess and hold those truths which they learn out 
of them. ... I beseech them also to consider Avhat a la- 
mentable case it is that we may hold fellowship with the 
Romish Church in the inventions thereof without all danger, 
and can not, without extreme peril, be permitted in judgment 
and practice to depart from the same. ... I beseech them, 
in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to be a means unto her maj- 
esty and their honors, that my cause may be weighed in even 
balance. Imprisonments, indictments, arraignments, yea death 
itself, are no meet weapons to convince the conscience ground- 
ed upon the word of God and accompanied with so many wit- 
nesses of his famous servants and churches." 

Penry had already said to his wife, " I see my blood laid 
for, and so my days and testimony drawing to an end." Yet 
he would not succumb so long as there was any eifort to be 
made which he could make without compromising the truth 
for wliich he was Christ's witness. Expecting to be indict- 
ed, as Barrowe and Greenwood had been, for sedition, and 
that the indictment would be grounded, as in their case, on 
the books which he had published, he prepared (probably not 
without some aid of legal counsel) a paper showing what 
points might be insisted on in his defense against such an in- 
dictment. Thereupon another course was taken by those 
who intended his death. Among his private papers there had 
been found some imperfect notes of matters to be used in a 
memorial to the queen, which he had thought of preparing 
and presenting in person. In tliat private memorandum of 
something yet to be written, and with no evidence that it 
had ever been communicated to any human being, was the 
matter for which he was indicted. The trial, if trial it might 
be called where the prisoner was not permitted to be heard 
by counsel, took place at Westminster Hall, two months aft- 
er his arrest (May 21 = 31) ; and of course he was convicted. 

The next day he addressed to the queen's prime-minister, 
Lord Burleigh, a letter, with a formal "protestation," which 



182 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. IX. 

none, of whatever party, can read at this time without ren- 
dering homage not only to the integrity of the man, but also 
to the Christian dignity of the martyr. In the letter he 
says: "The cause is most lamentable, that the private obser- 
vations of any student, being in a foreign land, and wishing 
well to his prince and country, should bring his life . . . unto 
a violent end ; especially seeing they are most private, and so 
imperfect as they have no coherence at all in them, and, in 
most places, carry no true English. . . . Though mine inno- 
cency may stand me in no stead before an earthly tribunal, 
yet I know that I shall have the reward thereof before the 
judgment-seat of the Great King ; and the merciful Lord, 
who relieveth the widow and fatherless, will reward my des- 
olate orphans and friendless widow that I leave behind me, 
and even hear their cry — for he is merciful." In the "prot- 
estation," after a conclusive argument to prove his inno- 
cence of the crime for which he was condemned, and the un- 
reasonableness of the construction put upon his private pa- 
pers, he told what the great business of his life had been, and 
what his aspirations had been : " I am a poor young man, 
born and bred in the mountains of Wales. I am the first, 
since the last springing up of the Gospel in this latter age, 
that labored to have the blessed seed thereof sown in those 
barren mountains. I have often rejoiced before my God, as 
he knoweth, that I had the favor to be born and live under 
her majesty, for the promoting of this work. In the earnest 
desire I had to see the Gospel in my native country, and the 
contrary corruptions removed, I might well, as I confess in 
my published writings, . . . forget ray own danger; but my 
loyalty to my prince did I never forget. And being now 
to end my days before I am come to the one half of my 
years in the likely course of nature, I leave the success of my 
labors unto such of my countrymen as the Lord is to raise 
after me, for the accomplishing of that work which, in the 
calling of ray country unto the knowledge of Christ's blessed 
Gospel, I began." 



A. D. 1593.] JOHN PENKY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 183 

We linger in the martyr's prison cell while he is writing 
his final protestation, conscious that it is " the last writing 
which is likely to proceed from" him, and "looking not to 
live this week to an end." After an allusion to the attrac- 
tions which life had for him, to the " poor, friendless widow" 
and the " four poor, fatherless infants " whom he was leav- 
ing, and to the comparative lowliness and poverty of the con- 
dition in which he had liv^ed, he says: "Sufiiciency I have 
had, with great outward troubles ; but most contented was I 
with my lot ; and content I am, and shall be, with my unde- 
served and untimely death, beseeching the Lord that it be 
not laid to the charge of any creature in this land. For I 
do, from my heart, forgive all those that seek my life, as I de- 
sire to be forgiven in that day of strict account — praying 
for them as for my own soul, that, although upon earth we 
can not accord, we may yet meet in heaven unto our eternal 
comfort and unity. . . . And if my death can procure any 
quietness to the church of God, or the state, I shall rejoice. 
I know not to what better use it [my life] could be employed 
if it were reserved ; and therefore in this cause I desire not 
to spare the same. Thus have I lived toward the Lord and 
my prince ; and thus I mean to die, by his grace. Many 
such subjects I wish unto my prince, though no such reward 
to any of them." 

Having added his request, " as earnest as possibly I can 
utter the same, unto all those, both honorable and worship- 
ful, unto whom this my last testimony may come, that her 
majesty may be acquainted herewith before my death — if it 
may be," he subscribes his name, " with that heart and that 
hand which never devised or Avrote any thing to the discred- 
it or defamation of my sovereign. Queen Elizabeth — I take it 
on my death, as I hope to have a life after this. B}^ me, 
John Penry." 

There is no reason to think that Elizabeth ever saw that 
protestation, or heard of it. It was submitted to the judges, 
as the queen's advisers; and their comment remains in the 



184 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND OHUBCHES. [CH. IX. 

State Paper Office. "Penry," they said, "is not, as he pre- 
tendeth, a loyal subject, but a seditious disturber of her maj- 
esty's peaceable government. [It] appeareth many ways." 
Among those " many ways," they alleged " his schismatical 
separation from the society of the Church of England, and 
joining with the hypocritical and schismatical conventicles 
of Barrowe and Greenwood," and also "his justifying of Bar- 
rowe and Greenwood, who, suffering worthily for their sedi- 
tious writings and preachings, are nevertheless represented 
by him as holy martyrs." 

Such was English liberty under the sceptre of Elizabeth. 
The voluntary association of Christian men for united wor- 
ship and for mutual helpfulness in the Christian life — the 
quiet meeting, in fields and woods, or in private apartments, 
for the worship of God in any form or way not pi-escribed 
by the authority of that petticoated pope who called herself 
"Supreme Governor of the Church of England " — in one 
word, Congregationalism — was " sedition," to be punished by 
death. Green be the memory, forever, of the men who, in 
that cruel age, with the gallows before them, and with the 
hangman's noose about their necks, asserted and obeyed a 
higher law. To them, under God, do we owe it that in less 
th;ni thirty years from that date there began to be a New 
England; and that Old England itself, to-day, is free En- 
gland. 

Four days after trial and conviction, the jDrisoner was 
brought up and sentence of death was pronounced against 
him. In the ordinary course of proceeding, execution would 
have followed on the second or third day after the sentence. 
For some reason there was a day's delay, and a respite began 
to be hoped for. But on the fourth day (May 29= June 7), 
Whitgift and other lords of the queen's council affixed their 
names to the death-warrant, the archbishop's name being the 
first. At five o'clock, afternoon, the martyr was cai-ried on a 
cart from his prison in Southwark to the usual place of execu- 
tion for that county, at the second mile-stone on the Kent 



A.D. 159;3.] JOHN PENRY, THE MARTYR FOR EVANGELISM. 185 

road, near a brook which, in memory of Thomas a Becket, 
was called St. Thomas-a- Watering. An unexpected day and 
hour had been chosen for the execution, that his friends might 
have no opj^ortunity of cheering him with their presence. A 
few persons, who had seen the gallows so suddenly prepared, 
were standing around. To them the martyr Avould have 
spoken ; but not one word was he permitted to utter in their 
hearing. It was almost sunset, aud the shei-iif and hang- 
man were in haste. They finished their work ; and John 
Penry, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, having shared the 
ignominy of our Lord, who was hanged on a tree for sedi- 
tion, went to be with Christ.^ 

* Dr. Waddington's "John Penry, the Pilgrim Martyr," gives all that is 
known concerning Penry, and clears his memory from the cliarge that would 
make him the author of the Marprelate tracts. 



186 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cu. X. 



CHAPTER X. 

PEESECUTION AND EXILE : THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 

At the time when Barrowe and Greenwood ended their 
testimony, a certain "Act to retain the queen's subjects in 
obedience" was passing through Parliament. On the day 
after their death, the bill, having been modified by Puritan 
influence in the Commons with the view of making it eftectual 
against Separatists, " without peril of entrapping honest and 
loyal subjects," was passed into an act.' By that statute, 
banishment from the realm and forfeiture of goods became 
the punishment of every Separatist who, after suffering a 
three-months' imprisonment, should refuse to conform. The 
policy of Queen Elizabeth, in her attempted supremacy over 
the religion of her subjects (for it was distinctively her pol- 
icy), had converted the men who at first were only anti-ritu- 
alists, scrupulous about certain ecclesiastical vestments and 
ceremonies, into resolute Puritans, demanding a presbyterian 
instead of a prelatical church government over the nation. 
It had converted Puritans into Separatists, and now it was 
compelling Separatists to become Pilgrims, and preparing 
them to become the founders of a new nationality. 

Of course the new statute was first employed against the 
martyr church in London — or, more properly, in South wark, 
for its place of assembling was on that side of the Thames. 
The pastor, Francis Johnson, had already been about four 
months a prisoner; and the teacher, John Greenwood, had 
just been released from his long imprisonment by being put 
to death. Many of the members among them, some who liad 



The story of how that bill was can-led tlirongh Parliament is well tokl 
by Mr. Punchard, " History of Congregationalism/' iii., 103-200. 



A.D. 1594,] PERSECUTION AND EXILE. 187 

been clergymen in the Church of England, were suffering in 
lilthy jails for their testimony in behalf of Christian liberty. 
Barrowe, their bold lay champion, had died on the same gal- 
lows with his friend Greenwood. The mockery of Penry's 
trial, followed by the cruelty of his death, was four weeks 
after the passage of the act, and seems to have been ar- 
ranged for the purpose of striking terror into the Sejjaratists, 
by showing them that the new law under which they were 
to be banished had not superseded the old law under which 
they might be hanged at the discretion of their enemies. 

A letter from Johnson, the imprisoned pastor, to Lord 
Burleigh (Jan. 8, 1594), has come down to us. It shows that 
at the date of his writing he had been about fourteen months 
a close prisoner in one jail, and his brother George eleven 
months in another. He complained that his papers and 
books had been seized, and that all the papers, and some of 
the books (though published by authority), were still de- 
tained from him. A significant statement is made concern- 
ing one of the members of that persecuted church (William 
Smyth, formerly a clergyman in the Church of England), who 
had been examined by High Commissioners at Westminster 
a month before. He had been, at that time, eleven months 
a prisoner ; and, at the date of Johnson's letter, he was still 
in prison. That unrelenting offender against the hierarchy 
was so bold as to tell the High Commissioners — by way of 
illustrating the absurdity of " dealing with men by imprison- 
ment and other rigorous means, in matters of religion and 
conscience, rather than by more Christian and fit proceed- 
ings " — that "if he should, to please them, or to avoid trou- 
ble, submit to go to church, and to join wnth the public min- 
istry of those assemblies as it now standeth, he being per- 
suaded in conscience that it was utterly unlawful," his so 
doing would be mere dissimulation and hypocrisy; to which 
the reply was, "Come to the church, and obey the queen's 
laws, and be a dissembler, be a hypocrite or a devil, if thou 
wilt." 



188 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

Two of the many prisoners (Johnson knew not who, but 
might reasonably sui:)pose himself to be one) were to be in- 
dicted, and Lord Burleigh's powerful influence was invoked 
in their behalf. " We sufler these things," said he, " only for 
refusing to have spiritual communion with the autichristian 
prelacy and other clergy abiding in this land, and for labor- 
ing, in all holy and peaceable manner, to obey the Lord 

Jesus Christ in his own ordinance of ministry and worship 

Wherein if we did err, yet prisons and gallows were no fit 
means to convince and persuade our consciences ; but rather 
a quiet and godly conference, or discussing of the matter by 
deliberate writing before equal judges." He asked for such 
a conference, not as implying that he and his fellow-prisoners 
were not ready to die for the truth intrusted to them, " but 
to the end that, the truth being found out and made mani- 
fest, the false oftices, callings, and works of the prelacy and 
other clergy of this land might be quite abolished out of it; 
and their lordships and possessions might be converted to 
her majesty's civil uses (to whom of right they belong), as 
were, not long since, the like livings of the abbots, monks, 
and friars in these dominions, that thus there might be more 
free passage to the Gospel of Christ, and more peace to the 
church." 

Liclosed in the letter w^as a paper, drawn with an acute- 
ness worthy of a practiced lawyei", and designed to sliow 
"That F. J., for his Avritings, is not under the danger of the 
statute of 35 Eliz.,cap.l, made to retain the queen's subjects 
in their due obedience." Some of the points taken are his- 
torically important for the light which they throw on the 
position of those sufierers, not only in relation to principles 
of universal religious freedom, but also in relation to the 
fundamental principles of English law and the chartered lib- 
erty of English subjects. 

After a reference to the Act of Supremacy as defining the 
queen's authority in ecclesiastical mattei's, the question was 
raised, for the " prelates and ministers" to answer, " Whether 



A.l). 1594.] PEKSECUTION AND EXILE. 189 

her majesty, with the consent of the Parliament, may sup- 
press and abolish the present prelacy and ministry of the 
land, and transfer their revenues and possessions to her own 
civil uses, as her father, of famous memory, Henry VIII., 
did with abbots, monks, etc., and with their livings?" Ob- 
viously, the bishops, had they been required to answer that 
question, Avould have been as much perplexed as were the 
chief-priests of Judaism when required to answer whether 
the baptism of John was from heaven or of men. If the 
answer were No— where would be the queen's supremacy 
over the Church of England as by law established? If the 
answer were Yes — then there was no crime in Johnson's 
writings against the ecclesiastical establishment then exist- 
ing. 

The next point was that his writings were only in defense 
of the doctrines maintained by " the holy servants and mar- 
tyrs of Christ in former days," whose doctrines, " as being 
against the canonical functions of the pope, w^ere accounted 
Lollardy and heresy." If the new statute is to be con- 
strued as making those doctrines criminal for which the 
martyrs before the Reformation suftered, then it must be. 
construed as virtually repealing the act by which (in the 
first year of Edward VI.) tlie old statutes against Lollardy 
had been abrogated. 

Anotlier point was that Johnson's writings were "in de- 
fense of the right and liberty of the Church of Christ; which 
the great charter of England granteth shall be free, and have 
all her whole rights and liberties inviolable." The question 
as to the legitimate meaning of Magna Charta in the clause 
referred to might have been argued, before learned and im- 
partial judges, with great effect. No Protestant English- 
man could reasonably maintain that the "Church" to which 
" all her rights and liberties " were guaranteed by that in- 
strument was the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy 
unified and centralized in the pope. What was commonly 
recou'nized as the Church wlien the barons at Runnvmede 



190 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

extorted from King John the great security for the rights of 
Englishmen, was afterward reformed by Henry VIII. and 
Edward VI., and again by Elizabeth — many of its most val- 
ued institutions were su2:)pressed — great portions of its wealth 
were seized and appropriated to other uses — its forms of wor- 
ship were revised and simplified ; and all this was done pro- 
fessedly in the interest of the true Church of Christ in En- 
gland. Evidently the reforming sovereigns and Parliaments 
had proceeded on the theory that the Church to which rights 
and liberties had been guaranteed by the charter of the king- 
dom was none other than that institution which Christ found- 
ed. Christ's own institution, then — the Church as Christ 
and his apostles made it — the Church of the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures — was the institution to which the funda- 
mental law of England had granted freedom. Johnson's 
writings were in defense of freedom for the Church of Christ. 
His interpretation (without Avhich every step of what was 
called the Reformation had been a violation of the sover- 
eign's coronation oath) would have made the Magna Charta, 
just what the church polity of the New Testament is, a char- 
ter of religious liberty. 

Other points in the line of his defense were these: "He 
never did, nor doth, obstinately, without lawful cause, refuse 
to hear and to have spiritual communion with the public 
ministry of these [parish] assemblies ;" but he refuses only 
upon conscience grounded upon God's word " ( " which her 
majesty protecteth and defendeth"), "and approved by con- 
sent of the confessions of the Reformed churches, and of 
the faithful martyrs of Christ ;" and, finally, " having been 
close prisoner ever since long before this statute was made, 
he can not, in regard of his writings or any other thing what- 
soever, be lawfully convicted to have offended against this 
statute.'" 

But no such argument— no appeal from the letter of the 

' Strype, "Annals," iv., 134-138. 



A.D. 1594-1600.] PERSECUTION AND EXILE. 191 

new statute to Magna Charta or to universal principles of 
justice — was allowed to prevail against the necessity of the 
most efficient measures to suppress the crime of separation 
from the National Church. Since the death of the three mar- 
tyrs, Johnson was not only most conspicuous by his official 
position in the Separatists' church, but also most obnoxious 
by his writings. He might have been indicted and convict- 
ed under the same statute which had been used as the means 
of bringing his brethren to the gallows, but for some reason 
— perhaps because it was seen that the hanging of those 
martyrs had made their testimony more eftective — he was 
proceeded against under the new statute, and, having been 
convicted in legal form, was compelled to " abjure the realm." 
In other words, he was banished for life, but not till he had 
passed more than another weary half-year in the foul prison. 
Others of the persecuted flock were in like manner dismiss- 
ed from the prisons into life-long banishment, and were ac- 
companied or followed in their exile by such as were willing 
to dispense with the process of imprisonment, indictment, 
and sentence. Amsterdam became to many of these their 
city of refuge. A church of English exiles was formed there, 
with Johnson for pastor, and the learned Henry Ainsworth 
for teacher. It was indeed the London or Southwark church, 
dispersed by persecution, driven beyond sea, and gathered 
again in a strange land. 

This was in conformity with advice Avhich Penry had giv- 
en in anticipation of his death. Among the letters written 
by him from his prison was one, full of affectionate and sa- 
gacious counsel, "to the distressed faithful congregation of 
Christ in London, and all the members thereof, whether in 
bonds or at liberty." Tlie bill for the " Act to retain the 
queen's subjects in obedience" had not yet become a law 
when that letter was written ; but it Avas undergoing discus- 
sion and amendment in order to its passage, and they all 
knew that " on the side of their oppressors there was power." 
They knew that, in one way or another, the purpose of the 

N 



192 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

bill was likely to be executed. "My good brethren," said 
Penry, "seeing banishment with loss of goods is likely to be- 
tide you all, prepare yourselves fortius hard entreaty." Aft- 
er warning them against the temjitation to shift every man 
for himself in the impending calamity, and entreating them 
to take care that the church should not be broken up, but 
should go whithersoever it might please God to send them, 
he assvired them, as with prophetic inspiration, "The blessing 
will be great that shall ensue this care ; whereas, if you go, 
every man to provide for his own house and to look for his 
own family first, neglecting poor Zion, the Lord will set his 
face against you, and scatter you from the one end of heaven 
to the other, . . . You shall yet find days of peace and rest, 
if you continue faithful. This stamping and treading of us 
under his feet, this subverting of our cause and right in 
judgment, is done by him to the end that we should search 
and try our ways, and repent; . . . but he will yet maintain 
the cause of our souls, and redeem our lives if we return to 
him." 

Then, having entreated those of them who had either some 
property or some trade by which they might win the means 
of living, that they should not permit "the poor ones" to 
struggle alone, "or to end their days in sorrow and mourning 
for want of outward and inward comforts in the land of 
strangers," the martyr advised that there should be consul- 
tation " with the whole church, yea, with the brethren in other 
places, how the church may be ke])t together," so that their 
banishment should not be dispersion; and he added : " Let not 
the poor and the friendless be foicod to stay behind hei-e, and 
to break a good conscience, for want of your support and 
kindness unto them that they may go with you." Nor could 
he foi'get how closely some of "the poor and the friendless" 
were related to him. " I beseech you that you would take 
my poor and desolate widow, and my mess of fiatherless and 
friendless orphans, with you into exile, whithersoever you go. 
. . . Let them not continue after you in this land, where 



A.D. 1593.] PERSECUTION AND EXILE. 193 

they must be enforced to go again into Egypt." He had 
also a word of loving remembrance for two by name: "Be 
every way comfortable unto the sister aTid wife of the dead, 
I mean unto my beloved M. Barrowe and M. Greenwood, 
whom I most heartily salute, and desire much to be comforted 
in their God, who, by his blessings from above, will counter- 
vail unto them the want of so notable a brother and hus- 
band.'" 

He had already made reference to "the brethi'cn in other 
places;" but, before closing his letter, he mentioned them 
again, more distinctly, and in words of great significance. 

"I would wish you earnestly to write — yea, to send, if you 
may, to comfort the bi-ethren in the west and north coun- 
tries,^ that they faint not in these troubles, and that also you 
may have of their advice, and they of yours, what to do in 
these desolate times. And, if you think it any thing for their 
further comfort and direction, send them conveniently a copy 
of this my letter, and of the declaration of my faith and al- 
legiance, wishing them, before whomsoever they be called, 
that their own mouths be not had in witness against them 
in any thing. Yea, I would wish you and them to be to- 
gether, if you may, whithersoever you shall be banished ; and, 
to this purpose, to bethink you beforehand where to be ; yea, 
to send some who may be meet to prepare you some resting- 
place; and be all of you assured that he who is j^our God in 
England will be your God in any land under the whole 
heaven; for the earth and the fullness thereof are his, and 
blessed are they that, for his cause, are bereaved of any part 
of the same." 

' Penry's letter to the church was written under the supposition that Bar- 
rowe and Greenwood had already suffered death. It was dated April 24, 
the day on which those martyrs were first brought forth for execution "early 
in the morning," and then resfiited. The news of tliat respite had not reach- 
ed the prison in which Penry was confined. 

^ Some readers may not be aware that "county" and "country" were 
originally the same word. 



194 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

This remarkable passage gives us a glimpse, first, of tlie 
fact that the suffering church in London was in relations of 
correspondence with suffering brethren in tlie western and 
northern counties of England ; and then of the fact that, while 
the "Act for retaining the queen's subjects in obedience" 
was passing through Parliament, those persecuted Christians, 
in city and country, were beginning to consult on the pos- 
sibility and the method of keeping themselves together as a 
distinct community in some strange land. It was in the de- 
bate on the bill then pending that Sir Walter Raleigh es- 
timated the Biownists scattered over England at twenty 
thousand. Among the twenty thousand were those "breth- 
ren in the west and north countries" so affectionately re- 
membered by Penry. Who were theyV It happens that 
some of them were men in Avhom we have a special interest, 
and of whom some knowledge has come down to us. 

We change the scene, then, from the narrow streets of old 
London and Southwark — from the filthy and crowded prisons 
of the metropolis — from the gallows at Tyburn and that at 
the brook on the road which Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims 
traveled — to another part of England, nearly a hundred and 
fifty miles northward, where the three "countries" of Lincoln- 
shire, Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire border on each other. 

Four years^ before the hanging of the three Separatist 
martyrs, William Brewster, then about twenty-three years 
of age, came to reside with his father at a certain old manor- 
house, near the northern boundary of Nottinghamshire. Born 
of an ancient family, and educated at the University of 
Cambridge, he was acquainted with the splendid court of 
Elizabeth, and conversant with public affairs. He had 
been in the employment of William Davison, Avho, though 
he was a Puritan, was a trusted servant of the queen, her 
embassador in the Netherlands on a mission of great im- 
portance, and afterward one of her secretaries of state. His 
relations with his patron, both in the embassy and in the 

1 For this date, lieretofoie uncertain, I am indebted to Dr. II. M. Dexter. 



A.D. 1587-94.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 195 

court at home, had been intimate and confidential. The sec- 
retary " trusted him above all others that were about him," 
"employed him in matters of greatest trust and secrecy," 
"esteemed him rather as a son than a servant; and for his 
M'isdom and godliness, [in private] he would converse with 
him more like a friend and familiar than a master."^ It is 
quite natural, then, to find tliat when, after many years of 
faithful service. Secretary Davison, by one of the queen's 
most conscienceless and most dishonorable strokes of policy, 
was disgraced, robbed of all he had, and imprisoned in the 
Tower, under the pretense that he had acted contrary to her 
will in tlie matter of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots 
(February, 1587), Brewster " remained with him some good 
time after that he was put from his place, doing him many 
faithful offices of service in the time of his troubles." Just 
how long after the downfall of his patron he remained in 
London does not appear. Nor do we know whetlier he 
had any personal acquaintance among the suffering Separa- 
tists there. Two years after the beginning of Davison's im- 
prisonment, William Brewster was at the stately old manor- 
house of Scrooby, acting for his infirm father, who held 
an office there in the service of the queen. Five years 
later we find that he Avas himself the " post," or post- 
master at Scrooby, which was on the great road from Lon- 
don to Yoi'k, and thence into Scotland. There he lived " in 
good esteem among his friends and the gentlemen of those 
parts, especially the godly and i-eligious." He seems to have 
become an earnestly religious man, and to have accepted Pu- 
ritan views at the university ; for there it was that " the 
seeds of grace and virtue" were effectually planted in his 
mind. He did much for the advancement of religion " in the 
country where he lived." He was active in the Puritan way 
of doing good, "by procuring good preachers to the places 
thereabout, and drawing on of others to assist and help for- 

' Bradford, "History of I'lymouth Plantation," p. 40'J. 



196 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. X. 

ward in such a work," contributing sometimes beyond his 
ability. " In tliis state he continued many years, doing the 
best good he could, and walking according to the light he 
saw, till the Lord revealed further unto him." More briefl)% 
the queen's "master of the posts" at Scrooby was a gentle- 
man of Puritan sympathies, working to promote the preach- 
ing of the Gospel in the Church of England, and hoi)iiig that 
the remaining superstitions would soon be refoi-med by au- 
thority. 

But in that region the idea of "reformation without tarry- 
ing for any" was beginning to take effect. Men were begin- 
ning to learn that there might be individual and personal 
reformation, voluntary conlbrmity to the I'ules and principles 
given in the New Testament, without waiting for a reforma- 
tion of the National Church by the national government. 
How this came to pass, and by what stages of progress, may 
be best told by one who had himself no small part in the 
story. Tracing the movement from an undefined beginning, 
he tells us that " by the travail and diligence of some godly 
and zealous preachers, as in other places of the land, so in 
the north parts, many became enlightened by the word of 
God, and had their ignorance and sins discovered by the word 
of God's grace, and began to reform their lives and make con- 
science of their ways." In other words, they began to be 
conscientious in all things, and were earnest to know the 
will of God that they might obey it. This was nothing else 
than private judgment in religion — the practical recognition 
of individual responsibility to God — the first stage of " ref- 
ormation without tarrying for any." Individuals, one by 
one, were beginning to reform themselves under the guidance 
of the Scriptures. What next? As soon as "the work of 
God," moving them to live soberly, righteously, and godly, be- 
came manifest in them, " they were both scoffed and scorned 
by the profane multitude ; and the ministers," among whose 
hearers such changes were taking place, began to experience 
the oppressive urgency of the queen's hierarchy. Those min- 



A.D, 15^4-1000.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 197 

isters must submit to " the yoke of" subscription," or be si- 
lenced. Nor was this all. Scoffs and scorn might be en- 
dured. The silencing ofNonconfoi-mist clergymen — if it had 
merely debarred them from preaching in the pulpits of the 
state church — would not have been an intolerable hardship, 
so long as there were private houses in which they could 
meet quietly those who desired to hear tliem. But the 
queen's supremacy gave them no such liberty ; and the en- 
ginery of ecclesiastical oppression was brought to bear on the 
hearers as well as the preachers. " The poor people were so 
urged with apparitors and pursuivants and the commissary 
courts, as truly their affliction was not small."' 

In other words, the same sort of ecclesiastical discipline by 
whicli John Copping, because of some conscientious irregu- 
larity in his manner of worshiping God, had been shut up in 
the jail of Bury St. Edmunds year after year, till, at last, he 
was hanged for a pretended felony,- and by which so many 
reformers on the voluntary principle had been made to suf- 
fer like things in London, was employed upon these self-re- 
forming disciples of Ciirist in the north of England. Nor is 
there any reason to doubt that such proceedings began as 
early there as in the diocese of Norwich or in that of Lon- 
don. 

We can easily believe that " truly their affliction was not 
small." But after they had borne it " sundry years with 
much patience," it had the effect of opening their minds to 
receive additional light on the ecclesiastical questions of those 
times — an effect which Elizabeth and her j^relates had not 
expected. In the quaint phrase of their own chronicler, 
" they were occasioned by the continuance and increase of 
these troubles, and other means which the Lord raised up in 
those days, to see further into these things by the light of 
the word of God." At first they were simply Puritans — non- 
conforming members of a National Church whicli had not 

' Bradford, p. 8. ^ Ante, chap. v. 



198 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CUURCHES. ^[CH. X. 

been sufficiently reformed in its ritual — devout men, consci- 
entiously omitting certain prescribed ceremonies in public 
worship, and occasionally seeking to supply the hunger of 
their souls elsewhere than in their own parish churches — loy- 
al Protestants, lamenting the compromises which had been 
made with popery, and hoping for a time when the obnox- 
ious vestments and ceremonies should be abolished. But by 
the force of persecution stimulating their attention, and by 
the progress of inquiry and discussion, they were brought to 
see "that not only those base, beggarly ceremonies were un 
lawful, but also that the lordly, tyrannous power of the prel- 
ates ought not to be submitted to." Taught and stimulated 
by "apparitors and ])ursnivants and commissary courts," 
tiiey learned that the entire structure of the state church 
made " a profane mixture of persons and things in the wor- 
ship of God," and that not only certain phrases and rubrics 
in the prescribed forms of public worship, but the very "of- 
fices and callings" of the established clergy, their "courts 
and canons," and all their distinctive authority and rule, 
" were unlawful and antichristian." 

With these premises settled in their minds, it was not dif- 
ficult for them, especially when urged by continual persecu- 
tion, to make another stage of progress. They were brought 
to the conclusion that, whatever might be the Christian char- 
acter of some congregations in the parishes of England, and 
however numerous the true followers of Christ and mem- 
bers of his body might be among the English people, the ec- 
clesiastico - political institution called "the Church of En- 
gland" was not at all a church in any New Testament mean- 
ing of the word, but was (as their experience had proved) 
a positively antichristian institution. Having arrived at this 
conclusion, they could no longer be Puritans merely, waiting 
and protesting in the hope of a new reformation to be made 
by national authority in the National Church. They found 
incumbent on them a personal duty of reformation — even 
of church reformation — " without tarrying for any." As on 



A.D. 1602.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 199 

the first Christians in Antioch and in Rome, before churches 
existed tliere, the duty was incumbent oi forming churclies 
according to the mind of Christ ; so on them, in England, 
where Christ's institution had been subverted, and a differ- 
ent institution set up in its place, there was incumbent a 
duty of re-formation of churches. 

How long the time was in which they were passing through 
these successive stages of reformation, and at what date 
tliey, or any of them, adopted definitely the principle of sep- 
aration from the state church, Ave have no means of know- 
ing exactly. Some of " the brethren in the north countries," 
to whom Penry sent his dying testimony and advice, may 
have been dwelling in the neighborhood of Scrooby, and 
may have had personal intercoui'se with hira as he passed 
on the road to Scotland, or as he returned. At the date 
of his return, Brewster was already at home in the great 
manor-house there. But Penry himself had not then become 
a member of a Separatist church ; and it may be that those 
brethren were at that time no further advanced than he. We 
know, however, on good authority, tliat, nine years after Pen- 
ry's death (1602), "divers godly Christians in the north of 
England, being studious of reformation, and therefore not 
only witnessing against human inventions and additions in 
the worship of God" — as the Puritans did in one way or an- 
other — "but minding most the positive and practical part of 
divine institutions, . , . entered into covenant to walk with 
(4od, and one with another, in the enjoyment of the ordi- 
nances of God, according to the primitive pattern in the 
word of God." ' Or, in the Avords of the earlier historian, 
" they shook off the yoke of antichristian bondage, and, as 
the Lord's free people, joined themselves by a covenant of 
the Lord, into a church estate in the fellowship of the Gos- 
pel, to walk in all his ways made known, or to be made 
known to them, according to their best endeavors, whatever 



' Morton, "New England's Memorial," p. 9, 10 (Boston, 1 So;")). 



200 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. X. 

it should cost them. . . . And" — with a vivid memory of all 
the way in which they had been led for more than forty 
years of persecution, flight, exile, and conflict with the hard- 
ships of a wilderness, the chronicler added, significantly — 
"that it cost them something this ensuing history will de- 
clare," 

Tliis was not far from the time when Queen Elizabeth, 
after a i-eign of forty-lour years, w^as succeeded by James I. 
(March, 1603), who had been king in Scotland from the time 
when his mother, Mary, had been deposed by her subjects. 
A crowned king while yet an infant, he was entirely in the 
hands of tlie Protestant nobles who governed in his name. 
He was carefully educated for his kingly office, under the 
strictest discipline, and with all the cnlture of which his nat- 
ure was capable. In the old age of Elizabeth, there was nat- 
urally some relaxation of the severity with which offienders 
against the Act of Uniformity had been persecuted ; for it was 
possible that the king of Presbyterian Scotland, succeeding 
to the headship of the National Church in England, might 
inaugurate a new reformation. The Puritans were hoping 
not only that the mediaeval ritualism — which had been so 
dear to Elizabeth, and so odious to scrupulous consciences — 
would be purged out of the national worship, but that the 
ecclesiastical government of the realm would be leconstruct- 
ed according to the pattern which Cartwright had seen in 
the mount. Even the Separatists could not but hope for 
some relief from a new sovereign who had made ostentatious 
professions of Protestantism. But all such hopes were speed- 
ily disappointed. James Stuart's experience of Puritanism 
in Scotland had not made him a Puritan. He had played 
the hypocrite long enough in the presence of court preachers 
so much like John the Baptist as those to whom, from his 
youth np, he had listened with some show of deference; and 
great was his joy to find himself surrounded by obseqnious 
])relates, who assured him that he spoke " by the special as- 
sistance of God's Spirit," and on their knees professed their 



A.D. 1603-1607.] THE CHURCH AT SCEOOBY. 201 

joy that God had given them "such a king as since Christ's 
time had not been." The policy of Elizabeth, as supreme 
ruler of the National Church, was maintained with renewed 
zeal by the king and his prelates. Archbishop Whitgift, the 
conscientious and therefore relentless persecutor of noncon- 
formity, lived only to see the " Scotch mist," which he had 
feared, dissolving into sunshine for the hierarchy, and was 
succeeded by Bancroft, a man of the same sort, but less wor- 
thy of respect — less conscientious, perhaps, but not less a per- 
secutor. 

It was at the period of transition from the reign of Eliza- 
beth to that of James I., and from the primacy of Whitgift 
to that of Bancroft, that those " brethren in the north coun- 
tries," assuming their rights "as the Lord's free people," be- 
came, by their covenant with each other and with God, a 
church of Christ, and determiuately "shook off the yoke of 
antichristian bondage." 

Four years later (1607), the people who were thus intent 
upon "the positive and practical part of divine institutions," 
became "two distinct bodies or churches" for the sake of 
convenience in holding their assemblies ; inasmuch as their 
homes were dispersed over a territory too wide for their 
meeting in one place, especially in those times. After the 
division, one of the two churches met, ordinarily, in the 
manor-house of Scrooby. As at Colosse there was a church 
in the house of Philemon, and at Laodicea a church in the 
house of Nymphas — as at Corinth thei'e was a church in the 
house of Aquila and Priscilla, and afterward another in their 
house at Rome, when they had removed their residence to 
the imperial city' — so this church, instituted without asking 
Caesar's permission, might have been called the church that 
is in the house of William Brewster. There was the germ 
of New England. 

Through many generations that })lace of meeting was un- 



' Philem. 2 ; Col. iv., 15 ; 1 Cor. xvi., 19 ; Rom. xvi., 5. 



202 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES, [CH. X. 

known. Early historians had described it in general terras 
as on the borders of three counties, had (by a misprint) 
named "Ansterfield" as Bradford's birthplace, and had said 
that Brewster's house was " a manor of the bishop's," but 
had not mentioned Scrooby by name. Only a few years 
ago, the place was identified beyond all doubt by an English 
antiquary.^ The village church of Scrooby is there, as in the 
old time, with its gray spire. The little river Idle winds its 
way over the plain. Rich crops of grain, in fields divided 
by green hedges, testify that now, as of old, the people are 
emj^loyed in " the innocent trade of husbandry." The hamlet 
of Austerfield is only two or three miles away, its little 
"chapelry " (where, as the record testifies, "William the son 
of William Bradfourth was baj)tized in March, 1590") just 
out of sight behind the trees. On the lower grounds. Once 
marshy and waste, and inhabited by wild fowl and other 
game, but now reclaimed, are green meadows with grazing 
cattle. Close by the village, divided from its little garden 
patches by an ancient moat now dry, are the traces of the 
old Scrooby manor, though the building has passed away. 

As long ago as the age of William the Conqueror, the 
place belonged to the archbishops of York ; and from early 
times it was an occasional residence of theirs — a hunting- 
lodge, or a resting-place in their journeys. Sometimes it re- 
ceived royal visitors. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, daughter 
of Henry VII. of England, lodged there for a night on her 
way to her husband. ^ Cardinal Wolsey, when, having lost 

' Kev. .Joseph Hunter, of London, published in 1849 a pamphlet entitled, 
"The Founders of New Plymouth." Since that publication, Scrooby and 
the historic localities of its neighborhood have been sought out by many a 
reverent pilgrim. That benntifiilly illustrated volume, "The Pilgrim Fa- 
thers," by the artist W. H.Partlett, has made many of the places associated 
with the story of the Fathers familiar to the eyes of their descendants. 

^ James I. succeeded to the throne of England because that English 
princess, Queen Elizabeth's aunt Margaret, was his grandmother, and ev- 
ery British monarch since that time has been her descendant. The latest 




llllflllllSttB^ili 



A.D. 1607.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 203 

the favor of his sovereign, he was sent from court to his dio- 
cese of YorJv, lingered for weeks at Scrooby ; and there that 
sovereign liiinself, Henry VIII., lodged not long afterward. 
It seems a strange thing that a mansion so stately, and with 
such a history, became the meeting-place of a Separatist 
church in which every worshiper was liable to penalties of 
fine and imprisonment. 

Queen Elizabeth's zeal for the Church of England, as an 
institution of which she was the supreme ruler, did not al- 
ways restrain her from coveting, in behalf of her courtiers, 
its superfluous endowments. Sometimes a bishop was in- 
duced by a request from the queen — or, if the request were 
ineffectual, by a peremptory letter threatening with an oath 
that she would "unfrock" him — to alienate a town residence, 
or a manor, or some other valuable property, by means of a 
lease, perpetual or for a long term of years, to w'homsoever 
her majesty had undertaken to befriend in that way. Thus 
Cox, bishop of Ely, was compelled to surrender his town 
garden to the queen's favorite, Ilatton. Samuel Sandys, 
archbishop of York — a prelate who had Puritan sympathies 
— stood out bravely against a demand for " tlie great manors 
of Southwell and Scrooby," and for some reason Avas not 
coerced into submission. He declared that "the granting 
of such a lease would highly displease God, kill his con- 
science, and spoil the church of York." Some years after- 
ward he made a similar resistance when a similar demand 



English ancestor of the queen now reigning was that same sister of Henry 
VIII. James I. was a Scotchman, and his wife a Dane. Their daughter, 
Elizabeth Stuart, married a German, the Elector Palatine ; and she became, 
through the German marriage of her daughter Sophia, the grandmother of 
George I. The dynasty of the Georges was purely German, save only the 
drop of English blood wliich came from Margaret. Queen Victoria's mother 
was a German. Her husband was a German ; and the Prince of Wales — so 
tar as lineage and blood can determine a man's nationality — is hardly more 
an Englishman than the son of naturalized Celtic parents is a Yankee by 
virtue of his having been born in New England. 



204 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

was made for his house in Loudon. " These be marvelous 
times," said he; "the patrimony of the church is laid open 
as a prey to all the world." Accordingly, it was inscribed 
on his monument, in sonorous Latin, that "he defended the 
patrimony of the church as a thing consecrated to God." ' 
Yet it is among the mysterious incidents of the Elizabethan 
reformation that by this same archbishop, who so heroically 
defended " the church's patrimony " against the importunity 
of the queen herself, the manor of Scrooby — with its parks, 
mills, and woods — after having been for more than live 
hundi'ed years a possession of the church, was leased to 
his eldest son. Sir Samuel Sandys.^ Under him the stately 
house, which had been "a manor of the bishops," was occu- 
pied by William Brewster. Sir Edwin Sandys, another son 
of the archbishop, was a friend of Brewster in later years, 
and was doubtless acquainted with him before the downfall 
of Secretary Davison.^ It may have been by the friendship 
of Sir Edwin that Brewster, after losing his place at court 
by the unmerited disgrace of his patron, came to reside at 
Scrooby as a servant of the queen, and so became, like Gains 
at Corinth, " the host of the whole church." As his guests 
the little church assembled on the Lord's day — its members 
dropping in quietly, one by one, or two or three in company, 
careful not to attract too much attention, till some fit apart- 
ment of the great mansion was filled with worshipers. Long 
afterward, and far away, they remembered their meetings in 
his house, and that " with great love he entertained them 
when they came, making provision for them to his great 
charge." 

How came there to be, just there, the materials out of 



' Strype, " Whitgift," i., 286, 287; "Annals," iii., pt.ii., 5r>0, 5',]. 

' Steele, " Chief of the Pilgrims," p. 106. 

^ George Cranmer, a grand-nei)hew of Archbishop Cranmer, was Sir Ed- 
win's very intimate friend at Oxford and in travels on tlie Continent, and was 
associated with Brewster in the service of Secretary Davison. 



A.D. 1600-160V.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 205 

which these two congregations of Separatists could be gath- 
ered? We can understand more readily the growth of an 
advanced Protestantism in London, and in other centres of 
influence and of intercourse ; but how came there to be in 
these rural parishes and scattered villages, among a people 
so remote from the places where agitation and progress 
would be natural, so much of thought on religious themes, 
so much of spiritual quickening, so much of movement to- 
ward ecclesiastical liberty ? Are not these the people who 
might be expected either to hold fast the ancient supersti- 
tions, or to accept, without a murmur of inquiry, whatever 
may be determined by the queen? The question is an- 
swered when the chronicler tells us of the "godly and zeal- 
ous preachers" who had propagated in those parts the doc- 
trines of the religious reformation. It was by the preaching 
of that ancient Gospel, " repentance toward God and faith 
toward our Lord Jesus Christ," that so many of the plain 
country people, far away from the court and the universities 
and from the great trading towns, had become thoughtful 
students of the Bible, earnestly inquiring after God's truth, 
and resolutely determined on personal reformation at what- 
ever cost. It happens that we know who and what some of 
those preachers were. 

We have seen ^ that in the early years of Queen Elizabeth, 
under the reaction against the atrocities of the preceding 
reign and the manifold necessity of making England a Prot- 
estant country, there was some measure of connivance, on the 
part of the government, at the ecclesiastical irregularities of 
clergymen whose Protestantism protested against the "rags 
of poperj^" In various dioceses the bishops were themselves 
Puritans in theory, though they accepted for the time the 
existing regulations. Under some such influences in the 
dioceses of York and Lincoln, evangelical Protestantism, as it 
would now be called, took deep root and spread itself among 



' Ante, chap. iv. 

o 



206 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

the people. But when the queen began to be more urgent 
in her demand for the strictest and minutest uniformity in 
ecclesiastical ceremonies and vestments, and when the first 
generation of her bishops — of whom many had been confess- 
ors and exiles for the Protestant faith — began to be suc- 
ceeded by men of another sort, then it was that " the minis- 
ters," the "godly and zealous preachers," were "urged with 
the yoke of subscription or else must be silenced," were sum- 
moned into the ecclesiastical courts to give account of their 
ritual irregularities, were fined, were imprisoned, were de- 
prived of their livings; and then it was that the noncon- 
forming laity also found themselves at the mercy of malig- 
nant informers, and " were so vexed with apparitors and 
pursuivants and the commissary courts as truly their afflic- 
tion was not small." Then, too, it was that some of the 
preachers, and some of their hearers and converts, began to 
advance from Puritanism into Separatism. 

One of those clergymen was John Smyth, who had been 
a fellow in one of the colleges at Cambridge, and had there 
been put ujDon his defense before the Vice-Chancellor of the 
University for having affirmed in a sermon the unlawfulness 
of sports on the Lord's day. He appears to have been a 
preacher (probably a lecturer) in the city of Lincoln, and aft- 
erward to have held a benefice at Gainsborough, about twelve 
miles distant from Scrooby. He is described as " a man of able 
gifts, and a good preacher ;" but not many of the Puritans 
were more likely than he to come into collision w^ith the eccle- 
siastical authorities, or to be deprived and silenced. Progress 
from Puritanism into separation was natural to such a mind 
as his, especially under the stimulus of persecution ; but he 
is said to have spent nine months in study of the questions 
about conformity, and to have held a disputation with some 
of the most conspicuous of the Puritan divines on those 
questions, before his renunciation of the National Church. 
He was chosen pastor of one of the two Separatist churches 
— the one which ordinarily met at Gainsborough. 



A. D. 1607.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 207 

Another of the "godly and zealous preachers" was Rich- 
ard Clyfton, who had been vicar of Marnhara, near Newark, 
in Nottinghamshire, and afterward rector of Babworth, a 
village not far from Scrooby. His ministry at Babworth 
began about twenty years before the Scrooby church was 
instituted. Bradford, whose early religious experience was 
associated with his ministry, affectionately testifies that he 
"by his pains and diligence had done much good, and under 
God had been a means of the conversion of many." That 
"grave and reverend preacher," having been pushed on from 
Nonconformity to Separation, was chosen pastor of the 
Scrooby church ; and very naturally, for that church must 
have consisted chiefly of those who already loved and hon- 
ored him for his work's sake. 

With him was associated, in the ofiice of teacher, a young 
man about twenty-five years of age, born in that part of En- 
gland, a Master of Arts in the University of Cambridge, and 
recently a fellow of Corpus Christi College there, who, aft- 
er leaving the university, had received "deacon's orders" 
in the Church of England, and had performed some work as 
a minister of Christ in the city of Norwich and elsewhere in 
the county of Norfolk. That younger minister — " a man of 
a learned, polished, and modest spirit, pious and studious of 
the truth, largely accomplished with suitable gifts and quali- 
fications " — bore the name which has become so venerable in 
the history of New England, John Robinson. Certainly it 
was a rare privilege given to that little band of worshipers 
that, while they had the experienced Clyfton for their pastor, 
ministering to them in their assemblies the word of consola- 
tion, they had also for their teacher, ministering the word of 
doctrine, a man so gifted as Robinson, and of so sweet and 
loving a spirit. 

At a later period, the judicious and large-minded Brew- 
ster — the man whose diversified expei'ience in affairs, as well 
as his general culture and his weight of character, had most 
conspicuously qualified him for the presidency in that Chris- 



208 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

tian community, though he did not recognize in himself any 
special vocation to the ministry of the word — was chosen to 
be ruling elder; and thus the threefold eldership in the 
church — pastor, teacher, and ruler — the presbytery within the 
church, not outside of it and over it — was completed. 

But such proceedings as these, the definite organization of 
two distinct churches near to each other, and their stated as- 
semblies for worship — however conformable to apostolic prec- 
edents and to the law of Christ — \vere obviously contrary 
to the Act of Uniformity. The policy which Avonld have no 
church in England but the state church, and no worship but 
that which James Stuart had authorized, could not endure 
such an assertion of religious liberty. No matter how peace- 
able and quiet, or how blameless in other respects, the men 
might be who dared to associate themselves under the law 
of Christ "as the Lord's free people," they Avere insubordi- 
nate under the hierarchy which Queen Elizabeth had estab- 
lished, and which her successor was resolved to maintain. 

The story of what their undertaking cost them begins Avith 
their experience of more violent persecution. It could not 
be expected that their definite organization of churches re- 
nouncing all dependence on the hierarchy or the state, and 
their stated meeting on the Lord's day for Avorship in a man- 
ner forbidden by the ruling powers, would escape the notice 
of their enemies. Of course, they found themselves " hunted 
and persecuted on every side ;" for they had none to befriend 
them. " Some Avere taken and clajDped up in prison, others 
had their houses beset and Avatched night and day [by ap- 
paritors and pursuivants], and hardly escaped their hands ; 
and the most Avere fain to flee, and leave their houses and 
habitations and the means of their livelihood." All this was 
no more than what their minds, strong in faith, and Avilling 
to suffer for Christ, were in some sort prepared for. But it 
soon became a grave question how long all this could be en- 
dured. They could not but inquire what refuge there was 
for their church, the organization in which their testimony 



A.D. 1607.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 209 

for Christ and Christian liberty was embodied. Only a few 
leagues distant from the eastern shore of England, just op- 
posite the low and fenny lands of Lincolnshire, there was a 
country where, if they were Avilling to lose all things else, 
they might enjoy their religious convictions. In the United 
States of the Netherlands, as the Dutch republic was then 
called, there was " a church without a bishop and a state 
without a king;" and there they might find "freedom to 
worship God." They had "heard that in the Low Countries 
was freedom of religion for all men ; as also how sundry, 
from London and other parts of the land, had been exiled 
and persecuted for the same cause and were gone thither." 
Why might they not make that foreign land their refuge till 
better times should come in England? " By a joint consent, 
they resolved to go into the Low Countries." Not as indi- 
vidual exiles, fleeing in all directions on the plan of " save 
himself who can ;" but as a church, for which their native 
country had no place of rest, they were to go beyond the 
sea. For about a year from the date of the friendly division 
into two distinct churches, they had continued to meet on 
the first day of the week, though not always in Brewster's 
house, and had, in that respect, baffled the diligent malice of 
their adversaries; but they could do so no longer, and they 
must get over into Holland as they could. 

It was a brave resolve, for they knew the meaning of it. 
"To go into a country they knew not but by hearsay, where 
they must learn a new language, and get their livings they 
knew not how," and where many years of war had made all 
the necessaries of life oppressively dear — seemed " an advent- 
ure almost desperate." Moreover, they " had only been 
used to a plain country life and the innocent trade of hus- 
bandry ;" and they were to take their chances among a peo- 
ple subsisting by manufactures and commerce. " But these 
things did not dismay them, although they did sometimes 
trouble them ; for their desires were set on the ways of God, 
and to enjoy his ordinances. They rested on his providence, 



210 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

and knew whom they had believed." So beautifully did 
they obey the precept, "In all thy ways, acknowledge God;" 
and, more wisely and lovingly than they knew, the promise 
was performed — "He will direct thy paths." 

That resolve, however, was not easily carried into effect; 
" for, though they could not stay, yet were they not suifered 
to go." On the one hand, the "Act to retain the queen's 
subjects in obedience " would not permit them to stay ; for 
under it their goods would be forfeited, and they would be 
compelled to abjure the realm. On the other hand, the 
statesmanship which said of the Puritans, " I will make them 
conform, or I will harry them out of this land," was afraid 
that Nonconformists, Avhen " harried" out of England, would 
take refuge in American wildernesses; and therefore a royal 
proclamation had been issued forbidding Englishmen to 
transport themselves into Virginia without a license.^ Prob- 
ably it was by force of that proclamation that the ports were 
shut against Separatists seeking to escape into Holland, for 
what security was there that they would not find their way 
from Holland to Virginia? Liable as such persons were to 
banishment, they must not be permitted to banish them- 
selves. They were constrained to smuggle themselves out 
of their own country as if they had been runaway slaves. 

Boston (or, if "writ large," St. Botolph's town), in Lincoln- 
shire, about fifty miles distant from their homes, was the 
port from which a large company of them intended to sail. 
Brewster was one of them. He had relinquished his office 
(Sept., 1607), and, having prepared his books and other chat- 
tels for transportation, he bade farewell to Scrooby. He and 
his friends had hired a vessel for their purpose, and had ar- 
ranged with the master for their embarkation at an appoint- 
ed time and place. The shipmaster proved himself a knave. 
First, he involved them in delay and expense by not being 
ready at the time. Afterward, when he had them and their 



' Palfrey, " History of New England," i., 138. 



A.D. 1607.] THE CHURCH AT SCROOBY. 211 

goods on board, he betrayed them into the hands of their en- 
emies, with whom he had conspired against them. It was 
night ; for the emigrants Avere hoping to escape into exile 
under cover of darkness. But just as they began to feel that 
they were safe — the ship riding at anchor — and that soon 
they would be beyond the reach of apparitors and pursui- 
vants, they were arrested, taken from the ship into open 
boats, rifled of whatever they had about them, and searched 
to their shirts by ruflianly officers, who even insulted the mod- 
esty of the women. In the morning they were brought back 
into the town," a spectacle and wonder to the multitude who 
came flocking on all sides to behold them," and were pre- 
sented to the magistrates. It does not appear that Separat- 
ism had made any lodgment in Boston ; but Puritanism was 
almost dominant there. Ecclesiastical ofiicers other than 
simply ministers of the Gospel were not held in high esteem, 
and the persecution of honest and religious people for non- 
conformity was not much encouraged by citizens of the bet- 
ter sort in that old borough. So when the captured Sepa- 
ratists were brought before the civic magistrates, they were 
treated with respect, and would have been set at liberty, had 
not messengers been already sent to the lords of the council 
with information of so important an arrest. After a month 
of imprisonment, the messengers having had time to go and 
return, Brewster and six others were bound over for trial 
and detained in prison, while the others were discharged. 
What came of the trial, and how long those seven remained 
in prison, does not appear. 

Some men would have been quite vanquished by such a de- 
feat. It was not so with these men. About six months lat- 
er, having quietly recruited their strength and renewed their 
preparation for removal, they made another attempt. In 
some way they had been brought into communication with 
a Dutchman at Hull, who had a ship of his own under the 
Dutch flag. Finding reason to trust him, they frankly in- 
formed him of their condition, and made an agreement with 



212 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. X. 

him for their passage over to his country. He was to take 
them on board at a point on the Huraber between Hull and 
Grimsby. The place, " a large common, a good way distant 
from any town," seemed to promise them a safe embarkation. 
When the appointed time drew near, the women and chil- 
dren of the company, with the goods, were sent, probably 
from Hull, in a small bark which had been hired for the pur- 
pose ; and the men went by land to meet them. They were 
a day too early for the ship ; and as the sea, driven by an 
easterly wind, rolled up the broad Humber, the women were 
distressed with sea-sickness, and for their relief the little craft 
put into a creek hard by, where the outgoing tide left her 
aground. The ship came early the next day ; but the bark, 
with so many of the passengers and all the freight, was fast 
in the mud, and must wait till about noon for the tide. 
Meanwhile the skipper, to save time, sent his boat for the 
men, whom he saw walking about on the shore. But when 
the boat had gone once and returned full of passengers, and 
was ready to go the second time — behold ! " a great compa- 
ny, both horse and foot, with bills and guns and other weap- 
ons !" The dangerous fugitives had been tracked, and the 
posse coniitatus had been called out to capture them. It 
was beginning to be a serious affair for the captain and his 
ship as well as for his intended passengers. To him the sight 
of that armed force, " horse and foot," was a suggestion of 
seizure and of proceedings in admiralty. Thereupon he swore 
a great Dutch oath, " and, having the wind fair, weighed his 
anchor, hoisted sails, and away." No time had he for con- 
sidering what the condition would be of the few passengers 
— one boat-load — whom he had on board. There they were, 
suddenly and helplessly parted from their wives and chil- 
dren, whom they saw falling into the hands of enemies. 
They had nothing for their voyage — nothing for their settle- 
ment in a foreign country, save the clothes they wore : all 
that they had prepared for their removal being on board the 
bark. But " there was no remedy : they must thus sadly 



A.D. 1608.] THE CHUECH AT SCROOBY. 213 

part." The men who were left on shore escaped the pursu- 
ers ; those only remaining whose presence might be some pro- 
tection or help to the women. " But pitiful it was to see the 
heavy case of these poor women — what weeping and crying 
on every side ; some for their husbands that were carried 
away in the ship ; others not knowing what should become of 
them and their little ones ; others, again, melted in tears, see- 
ing their poor little ones hanging about them, crying for fear 
and quaking with cold." But, after all, the capture of so 
many women and children was no great achievement. It 
was something that the emigrating expedition had been de- 
feated ; but what were the captors to do with their captives? 
After going from one justice to another in vain, they began 
to be embarrassed. "To imprison so many women and inno- 
cent children for no other cause (many of them) but that 
they must go with their husbands, seemed to be unreasona- 
ble, and all would cry out of them ; and to send them home 
again was as difficult," for their homes had been broken up 
in order to their migration. "In the end necessity forced a 
way for them," and they were released without being impris- 
oned. 

Meanwhile the few men — "the first boat-load" — carried 
away in the ship against their will were driven by a tempest, 
far northward, to the coast of Norway. Instead of the few 
hours which should have sufficed for their voyage to Hol- 
land, they were fourteen days at sea ; and for seven days 
" they saw neither sun, moon, nor stars." At one time the 
ship seemed to be foundering, and the sailors despaired. But 
she righted in a moment, and just then the storm began to 
abate. It was only after such perils that they arrived at 
their destination. Bradford, who was one of them, retained 
in his old age a vivid remembrance of that voyage — how ear- 
nestly and believingly they prayed while the tempest was 
roaring ; and how, " when man's hope and help failed, the 
Lord's power and mercy appeared" for them. "Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God." They, in the sim- 



214 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. X. 

plicity of tlieir trust and the purity of tlieir devout affection, 
saw God in the tempest, and to him they cried. They saw 
him in the calm; and he "tilled their afflicted minds with 
such comforts as every one can not understand." No scien- 
tist of to-day believes in the immutability of natural law and 
the conservation of force more firmly than they believed in 
the immutability of the divine purposes. In their theory of 
the universe, the storm and the hush, the billows and the 
ship that rode upon their surges, the peril and the deliver- 
ance, were equally determined from eternity. They did not 
expect that their words, tkrown out upon the wind, would 
change God's purpose ; yet they prayed, for, to their thought, 
the prayer was itself included in the decree of the Ineffable 
Love that had loved them from before the foundation of the 
world. Scientists may perplex themselves about what pray- 
er has to do with events, for science knows only Avhat is 
limited by time and space; but faith, taking hold of the in- 
finite, and recognizing in events the evolution of an eternal 
thought and purpose, walks with God, speaks to him, listens 
for his voice, accepts his determinations, and sees him even 
iu "the stormy wind fulfilling his word." 

Baffled in two attempts, the members of the Scrooby church 
seem to have abandoned their plan of emigrating in a body, 
as Israel went out of Egypt. Some of their most active 
men having been, by the last disaster, carried into Holland, 
were able to serve as pioneers for the company, and to make 
such arrangements for them as were possible after their loss- 
es. Amsterdam was the rendezvous of the fugitives as they 
made their escape out of England, one by one, or in fam- 
ilies. " In the end, they all got over, some at one time and 
some at another, and met together again with no small re- 
joicing." Meanwhile, by the troubles they had suffered, " their 
cause became famous." Their Christian behavior under per- 
secution "left a deep impression on the minds of many." In 
many a thoughtful mind the inquiry was raised, " Who and 
what are these men ? What evil have they done ? What 



A.D. 1608.] THE CHURCH AT SCKOOBY. 215 

is it for which they suffer so meekly, and yet so persever- 
ingly?" 

Who and what were they ? Whatever ecclesiastical or 
political prejudice against them may linger in some quarters, 
no intelligent reader of history can think of them as frantic 
enthusiasts, as dupes of knavish leaders, or as in any way 
dangerous members of society. Some of them were men 
trained at the English universities, and skilled in the learn- 
ing and the controversies of their time. Some were not with- 
out experience of life in the great world, and in connection 
with public affairs ; others were plain people of the old En- 
glish yeomanry, who had lived on their hereditary acres — 
the type and original of our New England farmers. All had 
gained the intelligence that comes from the diligent study 
of the Bible, and all were honest and earnest believers in the 
Christ of the New Testament. Such were the men and the 
women who were thus driven out of their native England, 
yet hunted and intercepted in their flight, as if they were 
criminals escaping from justice. Why did they suffer the 
spoiling of their goods, arrest, imprisonment, exile ? Their 
only crime was that, while they rendered to Cassar the things 
that are Ctesar's, they would not render to Csesar the things 
that are God's. They had caught from the Bible the idea of 
a church independent alike of the pope and the queen, in- 
dependent of Parliament as well as of prelates, and depend- 
ent only on Christ. It was their mission to work out and 
organize that idea ; and, in so doing, they wrought and suf- 
fered for their posterity in all ages and for the Avorld. 



216 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. XI. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTERDAM. 

The Separatists of Scrooby, having made their escape 
from their native country, had become literally " strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth." Holland was to them only "a 
strange country," not the land of promise. In Bradford's 
report of the impressions which that country made upon 
them when they saw it, there is a picturesque effect which 
shows how he felt as one of them. He was at that time 
a youth of not more than twenty years — a plain north- 
country Englishman, whose knowledge of the world beyond 
the seas was only so much as he had been able to gain 
from vague report with the aid of a few books, and who 
had probably never seen any larger town than Boston, in 
Lincolnshire, and Hull, in Yorkshire. His own words, for 
himself and his fellow-exiles, are the best in which to tell 
the story : 

" Being now come into the Low Countries, they saw many 
goodly and fortified cities, strongly walled, and guarded 
with troops of armed men. Also they heard a strange and 
uncouth language, and beheld the different manners and cus- 
toms of the people, with their strange fashions and attires ; 
all so far differing from that of their plain country villages, 
wherein they were bred and had so long lived, as it seemed 
they were come into a new world. But these were not the 
things they much looked on, or which long took up their 
thoughts ; for they had other work in hand, and another 
kind of war to wage and maintain. For though they saw 
fair and beautiful cities flowing with abundance of all sorts 
of wealth and riches, it was not long before they saw the 
grim and grisly face of poverty coming upon them like an 



A.D. 1G08.] THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTERDAM. 217 

armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter, and 
from whom they could not fly. But they were armed with 
faith and patience against him ; and though they were some- 
times foiled, yet, by God's assistance, they prevailed and got 
the victory." 

They were not entirely without friends in Amsterdam, 
the place of their first residence after their migration. 
Others of their countrymen, exiles like them, were there be- 
fore them. Besides the recognized congregations of English 
subjects, which had been established in various cities, and 
which — purporting to be of the Church of England, though 
generally served by Puritan ministers^ — were under the 
protection of a treaty, there was at Amsterdam (as former- 
ly, under Kobert Browne, there had been at Middleburg) an 
organized congregation of English Separatists. In that more 
ancient church, the exiles from Scrooby found some of their 
former friends. They also found in Amsterdam their old 
neighbor John Smyth, and. many who had been members of 
the chui'ch under his guidance at Gainsborough, and Avho, 
Avith him, had escaped from England a year or two earlier 
than they. It was natural for them to sit down, at fii-st, 
among their countrymen and friends in that great commer- 
cial city, till they could intelligently form their plans for a 
more permanent residence. 

They soon discovered that, among the English Separatists 
at Amsterdam, there were elements of discord, tending to 
dissolution. Already there had been a painful agitation in 
the church under the pastoral care of Francis Johnson ; and 
it had resulted in the excommunication of two conspicuous 
members. The story is worth telling, not only because it 
gives us a glimpse into the interior of a Separatist church in 
those days, but also because there is something of a moral in 
it. It began with a complaint against the pastor's wife. 

' Such was the position of Francis Johnson when he was "preacher to the 
Company of English of the Staple at Middleburg." Ante, p. 129. 



218 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XI. 

When the Scrooby exiles knew her, she was, as they testify, 
a grave matron, modest in dress and demeanor, ready to all 
good works in her place, especially helpful to the poor, and 
an ornament to her husband's pastoral office. In her youth 
she had been a merchant's wife and widow; and she was 
still young when Johnson married her — "a godly woman" 
with " a good estate." But she was blamed by some " be- 
cause she wore such apparel as she had been formerly used 
to," which certainly was not very extravagant. They found 
fault with "her wearing of some whalebone in the bodice 
and sleeves of her gown," also with her corked shoes, and 
" other such like things as citizens of her rank used to wear." 
The pastor and his wife, in deference to such scruples, were 
willing to reform the objectionable conformity to fashion, 
" so far as might be without spoiling of their garments ;" 
but the fault-finders would accept no compromise. Pitiful 
it seems to us that the peace of a church should be disturbed 
by a conflict of opinions about the whalebone in a lady's 
bodice and the cork in the heels of her shoes. Pitiful it 
seemed to those who under the teaching of Clyfton and 
Robinson had added to their faith virtue, and to virtue 
knowledge ; but " such," said they, " was the strictness of 
some in those times," who could tolerate no Christian brother 
unless he "came full up to their size." 

The chief complainants against the "outward adorning" 
of the pastor's wife were the pastor's father and brother. 
Probably some domestic feud was the cause of the church 
difficulty. The good sense of the majority is shown in the 
fact that the pastor was not dismissed, nor his wife put under 
censure ; while the fidelity of the church appears in the fact 
that the two leading agitatoi-s, " after long patience toward 
them and much pains taken with them," were excluded from 
communion " for their unreasonable and endless opposition, 
and such things as did accompany the same." ^ The scars 

' Bradford's "Dialogue," in Yomig's "Chronicles of the Pilgrims," p. 446. 



A.D. 1608.] THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTEEDAM. 219 

of that conflict must have remained till after the arrival of 
the exiles from Scrooby. 

At the same time another trouble was impending. Smyth, 
" a man of able gifts and a good preacher," was also a man 
of " inconstancy and unstable judgment." He had, of course, 
much influence among those who came with him out of En- 
gland, having been under his pastoral care at Gainsborough ; 
and he was beginning to entertain and broach opinions which 
were likely to raise a controversy. Robinson, and "some 
others of best discerning" in the church that came from 
Scrooby, " seeing how Mr. John Smyth and his company 
were already fallen into contention with the church that 
was there before them," and finding reason to believe " that 
no means they could use would do any good to cure the 
same," were naturally averse from the thought of a perma- 
nent residence in Amsterdam. " Flames of contention," 
kindled by other causes, seemed " likely to break out in that 
ancient church itself" Robinson, therefore, and Brewster, 
and others in their company, felt that they must make an- 
other removal, " though they knew it would be much to 
the prejudice of their outward estate." Their "outward 
estate" was not the main thing in their estimate of life; for 
they were " strangers and pilgrims on the earth." 

Is there not in that unwillingness of theirs to remain among 
their fellow-exiles at Amsterdam a noteworthy indication 
of their character as a community ? There was no persecu- 
tion to drive them away. There was no prospect of their 
obtaining more lucrative employment or better support for 
their families elsewhere. We have evidence that there 
was no lack of friendliness between them and their brethren 
in exile. But they saw that, in Amsterdam, they were like- 
ly to be troubled with the whimsies of erratic and inconstant 
men ; that ultra - Separatists, crotchety inventors of new 
opinions, and restless agitators of all sorts, would be contin- 
ually attracted to that centre, and that in some other place 
they could have more peace in their communion with each 



220 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. XT. 

other, and better opportunities for mutual edification and 
the cultivation of Christian character. 

"For these and other reasons," says Bradford, "they re- 
moved to Leyden, a fair and beautiful city, and of a sweet 
situation, but made more famous by the university with 
which it is adorned." Such were the attractions which they 
felt when selecting the place of their abode — the beautiful 
city — the pleasant situation — the famous university with its 
resort of learned men. Against attractions so potent, the 
consideration that Leyden, " wanting that traffic by sea which 
Amsterdam enjoyed, was not so beneficial for their outward 
means of living," had no preponderating force. 

The history of the church under the care of Johnson and 
Ainsworth verified the forebodings which induced the Pil- 
grims to seek another place of refuge. In some respects that 
church seemed to prosper. Exiles from England, making a 
fair profession, and suflerers for conscience' sake, were con- 
tinually gathered into its communion ; so that for a time it 
had about three hundred members. It was served by a full 
stafi" of able officers — pastor, teacher, ruling elders, deacons, 
and deaconess.^ Its worship, conducted by Johnson, was 
edifying and impressive, not with ritual ornament, but with 

' The "Ancient Men," in Bradford's "Dialogue," say : " At Amsterdam, 
before their division and breach, they were about three hundred communi- 
cants; and they had for their pastor and teacher those two eminent men 
before named, and in our time four grave men for ruling elders, and three 
able and godly men for deacons, [also] one ancient widow for a deaconess, 
who did them service many years, though she was sixty years of age when 
she was chosen. She honored her place and was an ornament to the con- 
gregation. She usually sat in a convenient place in the congregation with a 
little birchen rod in her hand, and kept little children in great awe from dis- 
turbing the congregation. She did frequently visit the sick and weak, and 
especially women, and, as there was need, called out maids and young 
women to watch and do them helps as their necessity did require ; and, if 
they were poor, she would gather relief for them of those that were able, or 
acquaint the deacons ; and she was obeyed as a mother in Israel and an 
officer of Christ." — Young, p. 455, 456. 



A.D. 1600-1606.] THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTERDAM. 221 

spiritual beauty of simplicity.^ But it was the uuhappiness 
of that church to be infested with too many of those eccen- 
tric and restless persons who, either by their superficial en- 
thusiasm and impulsive instability, or by their conscientious 
narrowness, or perhaps by their stubborn impracticableness, 
are more troublesome than profitable to any church that has 
them among its members. Such men are indigenous every 
where ; and in times of persecution many of them are found 
among the persecuted. Amsterdam was the most convenient 
and attractive refuge for all sorts of persons who could find 
no toleration at home for their religious opinions or their 
modes of worship ; and consequently the church of English 
exiles there had more than it could well bear of those mem- 
bers who become apostates and enemies, as well as of those 
who, wherever they may be, and under whatever ecclesias- 
tical forms, disturb the peace of the church, and make its 
edification almost or altogether impossible. 

Those troubles began very early. While Johnson, the pas- 
tor, was still in prison at London, some of the exiled mem- 
bers of his flock fell into we know not what extravagant 
opinions of the Dutch Anabaptists, and were excommunicated 
by the others. Not much later, " many others — some older, 
some younger, even too many, though not the half— fell into 
a schism from the rest; and so many of them as continued 
therein were cast out; divers of them repenting and return- 
ing before excommunication, and divers of them after." ^ 
Then, after Johnson himself had passed from prison into ex- 
ile, there arose the great conflict concerning the whalebone 
in Mrs. Johnson's too fashionable bodice and the corks of her 
high-heeled shoes. An unhappy notoriety was given to that 
conflict by the indomitable George Johnson, who, after he 

' " A very grave ma'n he was, and an able teacher, and was the most sol- 
emn in all his administrations that we have seen any, and especially in dis- 
pensing the seals of the covenant, both baptism and the Lord's Supper.'' 
Bradford's "Dialogue," in Young, p. 445. 

^ Johnson, in Ilanburv, i., 110, 11 1. 

P 



222 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CUUECHES. [CH. XI. 

had been cast out of the church " for lying, slandering, false 
accusation, and contention," found means to print his version 
of the story in a volume, which, of course, found currency 
among the enemies of Separation, whether Puritans or Pre- 
latists.^ 

In other instances the church was vexed with defamatory 
pamphlets by apostate members. One such pamphlet, of 
which a copy is still extant, seems to have been considered, 
like George Johnson's, unworthy of a reply ; but, in another 
case, a public and authentic contradiction was thought neces- 
sary, not only for the reputation of the church, but rather for 
the defense of the principle of Separation.^ All these con- 
flicts and assaults had j^receded the arrival of the Pilgrims 
at Amsterdam. 

John Smyth was almost the last man whom a judicious 
adviser would have selected to neutralize the elements of dis- 
cord in such a church. Evidently, there was a sort of mag- 
netism in his enthusiastic nature. He was not only a good 
preacher, but had also other "able gifts." In his moral char- 
acter he seems to have been unblamable. The fearlessness 
with which he sought for truth, and the fidelity with which 
he obeyed his convictions, could not but command respect. 
But with all his "able gifts" and estimable qualities, he had 
not the gift of good common-sense ; his mind's eye was mi- 

' " Discourse of certain Troubles and Excommunications in the Banished 
English Church at Amsterdam, etc. 1603." Hanbury, i., 99. 

^ "Brownism turned the Inside outward: Being a Parallel between the 
Profession and Practice of the Brownists' Religion. By Christopher Lawne, 
lately returned from that wicked Separation. London, 1603." Hanbury, 
!., 100. 

" A Discovery of Brownism : Or a brief Declaration of some of the Errors 
and Abominations daily practiced and increased among the English Company 
of the Separation remaining for the present at Amsterdam, in Holland. 
By Thomas White. London, 1605." Hanbury, i., 107. 

"An Inquiry and Answer of Thomas White in his 'Discovery of Brown- 
ism.' By Francis Johnson, Pastor of the Exiled English Church at Amster- 
dam, in Holland. 1606." Hanbury, ibid. 



A.D. 1609.] THE SEPARATISTS IK AMSTERDAM. 223 

croscopic, incapable of seeing things in their perspective and 
proportions. Such a man could not but bring with him, into 
such a community as that of the English exiles at Amster- 
dam, new questions to be debated and new contentions. 

At this day, it weighs not much in proof of Smyth's insta- 
bility, or against the soundness of his judgment, when we 
are told that he adopted those theological opinions which 
Arminius had maintained in opposition to Gomarus, and 
which were favored in England by divines like Laud and 
Bancroft. Nor can we certainly conclude against him when 
we are told that he became scrupulous about baptism, and 
denied that it could be properly administered to the children 
of Christian parents. But when we find what the beginning- 
was of his quarrel with the Amsterdam church, we see what 
ailed him. "He, with his followers," says Ainsworth in be- 
half of the church, " breaking oiF communion with us, charged 
us with sin for using our English Bibles in the w^orship of 
God." His position was that the oflScial ministers of a church 
— the pastor and teacher — " should bring the originals, the 
Hebrew and Greek, and out of them translate by voice." 
Withdrawing from the church, for this reason, with his ad- 
herents, he afterward discovered that what he called " tlie 
tri-formed presbytery" (consisting of pastor, teacher, and 
ruling elders) was " a false ministry," and he denounced it 
accordingly. Then he learned that, " in contributing to the 
church treasury, there ought to be a separation from them 
that are without," inasmuch as the contribution is a religious 
communion. Another of his crotchets was that the singing 
of improvised compositions (the tune and the hymn coming 
"by gift of the Spirit") is "a part of God's proper worship 
in the New Testament;" and on that ground, also, he quar- 
reled with his former brethren, " who contented themselves 
with joint harmonious singing of the Psalms of Holy Script- 
ure." Evidently the man was, in Ainsworth's phrase, and 
more literally than Ainsworth thought, " benumbed in mind." 
Yet such were the materials of the Amsterdam church, and 



224 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XI. 

such was the man's personal influence, especially over those 
who had come with him out of England, that in his seces- 
sion he drew after him a considerable body of followers.' 
He died not long after that secession; but the churcli 
wliich he gathered — sometimes called "the remainders of Mr. 
Smyth's company" — outlived him, and, after a while, return- 
ed into England to testify and to sufl:er there in the great 
cause of religious liberty. 

At a later date, the Amsterdam church was agitated, and 
finally rent in twain, by another controversy—probably the 
one which liobinson "and others of the best discerning" in 
his church had foreseen as " likely to break out," and from 
which they desired to escape. The question arose whether 
the church should be self-governed, or governed by what 
Smyth had called "the tri- formed presbytery." Whether 
there should be elders in the church was not disputed ; nor 
whether, in addition to the pastor and teacher, known as the 
" teaching elders," there sliould be other elders, sharing equal- 
ly with them in the duty of overseeing and ruling the con- 
gregation. All this was agreed to on both sides as the ob- 
vious interpretation of apostolic precept and example. The 
elders, including the pastor and the teacher, were to rule, 
and Avere all equal in the function of ruling; but in what 
sense were they to rule? Were they executive oflicers mere- 
ly, presiding in the assembled church, conducting its woi'ship, 
preparing matters for its consideration, guiding its delibera- 
tions, but concluding nothing save with the consent of the 

' The church which Smyth gathered does not appear to have been a Bap- 
tist Church, as that name is commonly understood. Had he insisted on im- 
mersion as the only bajJtism, there would have been some traces of a conti'o- 
versy on that point between him and Ainsworth, or between him and Robin- 
son. He and his jiarty held that those who had been baptized in their in- 
fancy must be rebaptized on a personal profession of faith, and, in that sense, 
they were ^na-baptists. Smyth is sometimes called "the Se-baptist," be- 
cause, when he renounced his former baptism, he baptized himself before 
proceeding to baptize his followers. Robinson's Works, i. , 'ir>2 ; iii. , 1 68, 169. 



A.D. 1610.] THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTERDAM. 225 

brethren? Or, on the other hand, were they to open and 
shut, to censure and absolve, to direct and control all things 
according to their own judgment and without appeal, the 
only duty of the bi'otherhood in such matters being the duty 
of submission ? 

On this question, the pastor and the teacher were opposed 
to each other. Johnson, as a Puritan, had adopted Cart- 
wright's ideal of ecclesiastical polity ; and, when he sepa- 
rated from the National Church, he might very naturally 
carry with him, into his new relations, the Presbyterian feel- 
ing that a congregation ought not to govern itself as an 
equal brotherhood, but ought rather to be governed by its 
officers in a consistory or session. Ainsworth had never been 
a member of the clerical order in England ; and, naturally, 
he had no hierarchical prejudices. He was only a Christian 
scholar, profoundly and minutely learned, whom the church, 
because of his gifts, had chosen to be one of its elders, labor- 
ing in word and doctrine, as it had chosen Johnson to be 
another. It was easy for him to understand that the eldei's, 
whether ruling only, or ruling and teaching, were not lords 
over God's heritage, but servants of the church, responsible 
to their constituency for their official acts, and governing 
not by power but by light, and with the free consent of the 
brotherhood to every act of government. After much con- 
tention, the " Ainsworthians," as they were called, withdrew 
from the "Johnsonians," and the church was finally divided. 
(Dec, 1610).! 

Which of the two parties was the more numerous does 
not appear. It is said that Johnson and his adherents re- 
moved, after a while, from Amsterdam to Embden, in the 
neighboring province of Friesland ; and that there his church, 
claiming to be the same with the old Southwark church of 
which he was the pastor and Greenwood the teacher, dwin- 
dled in its loneliness, till not far from the time of his death 



' Hanbuiy, i., 240-256. 



226 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUBCHES. [CH. XL 

it became extinct. The other fragment, under the ministry 
of Ainsworth, remained at the old place, and afterward was 
known as " the ancient English Church in Amsterdam." After 
his death it lived on, not without some experience of internal 
dissensions, and, even half a century later (1671), there were 
said to be " some remains " of it. The " blind lane " in which 
the English Separatists had their meeting-place was probably 
that which is now called " Brownists' Lane," and Avhich is the 
only remaining trace in Amsterdam of " that ancient church." 
But " the bush was not consumed." Before the death of 
Johnson the church of the martyrs had begun to live again 
in Southwark. Henry Jacob, a beneficed minister of the 
National Church, had suffered for nonconformity, and, like 
many other clergymen obnoxious to the ecclesiastical courts, 
had escaped into Holland, where he gathered a congregation 
of English sojourners, using their liberty of worship, but pro- 
fessing not to separate from the National Church of their 
own country. As a Puritan he had earnestly opposed the 
extreme opinions of the Separatists, and had been, in more 
than one published discussion, the antagonist of Johnson ; 
but, like Johnson, he had yielded to arguments which he 
could not refute, and had become himself a Separatist. He 
had ventured on returning into England; and, perhaps with 
the aid of some who had been members of the church in Am- 
sterdam, he sought out and gathered into a new church (1616) 
the hidden ones who had maintained their fidelity to the 
cause through those years of persecution. It was a new 
church, constituted partly from what remained in London of 
that martyr church which, after giving Greenwood, Penry, 
and Barrowe to the gallows, had been driven into exile. It 
was the church of the martyrs, renewing its life at its birth- 
place. A few brethren, in whom the spirit of the martyrs 
lived, assembled in private for a day of prayer and fasting. 
At the close of the day, each of them in succession made 
profession of his faith in Christ. Then, standing together, 
hand clasped in hand, they covenanted with each other and 



A.D. 161G.] THE SEPARATISTS IN AMSTERDAM. 227 

with God that they would walk together as a church of 
Christ " ill all God's ways and ordinances, according as he 
had already revealed or should further make them knoioi to 
them.'''' To complete the organization, church officers must be 
chosen and inducted. Henry Jacob was designated pastor 
by the uplifted hands of the brotherhood, and others, by the 
same formality, were chosen deacons. Then pastor and dea- 
cons were ordained by prayer and the laying on of hands. ^ 

The church in Southwark thus reconstituted has outlived 
persecution, and is now the mother church of the thousands 
of Congregational churches in the British Empire. 

' Neal, vol.i.,2G2; Hanbury,i.,292,293; Robinson's Works, iii., 444-446. 
The church is that of which Dr. Waddington was lately pastor, and from 
which he has retired to pursue his w^ork in "Congregational History." 



228 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. — JOHN ROBINSON A PASTOR AND 
AN AUTHOR. 

In the archives of the city of Leyden there has been pre- 
served a memorial addressed by the Pilgrims (Feb. 12 = 22, 
1609) to "the Honorable the Burgomasters and Court of the 
City." The memorialists, " to the number of one hundred 
or thereabout, men and women, represent that they are de- 
sirous of coming to live in this city, by the first of May next, 
and to have the freedom thereof in carrying on their trades, 
without being a burden in the least to any one ;" and their 
humble petition is that they may have "free consent" to do so. 
The reply of the civic authorities was " that they refuse no 
honest persons free ingress to come and have their residence 
in this city, provided that such persons behave themselves 
and submit to the laws and ordinances ; and therefore the 
coming of the memorialists will be agreeable and welcome." 

That "first of May," then, was their "moving-day." Leav- 
ing the friends whom they had found in Amsterdam, and 
making their escape from the conflicts that seemed to be 
impending there, they came to the more quiet city which 
was to be for a while their home. There, in a community 
by themselves, bound to each other by intimate sympathies 
and by mutual helpfulness, they could wait for some such 
change in the policy of the English government as would 
give them toleration in their native land. Accordingly "they 
fell to such trades and employments as they best could, valu- 
ing peace and their spiritual comfort above any other riches." 
In respect to trades and employments, the place of their 
abode was wisely chosen. Leyden was a great hive of manu- 
facturing industry — not like a manufacturing city of to-day. 



A.I). 1G09.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 229 

l)ut as such industry was before the age of machinery ; and 
at that time the products of Dutch handicraft went into all 
the markets of the world. 

Most of the Pilgrims had been, in England, simple husband- 
men. Their brief residence in Amsterdam had given them 
scanty opportunity for becoming skillful in new employments. 
If they were to live in Leyden, they must learn such trades as 
would yield them a subsistence there ; and however willing 
they might be to labor, their earnings must needs be small 
:it first. Yet they redeemed their promise to sustain them- 
selves " without being a burden in the least to any one." 
With brave hearts they betook themselves to such employ- 
ments as they could find ; " and at length they came to raise 
a competent and comfortable living, but with hard and con- 
tinual labor." A few of them (not more than five) seem to 
have had so much capital as enabled them to engage in com- 
merce, and are named in the city records as " merchants." 
One was a " physician," whose gift of healing was employed, 
no doubt, chiefly among the members of the Pilgrim com- 
munity. Others were " silk-workers," " fustian-makers," 
" wool-carders," and artisans in similar branches of manufact- 
ure. Three were printers, there being (as we have seen) 
much occasion for the printing of English books in the 
Netherlands. One was a mason, one a carpenter, one a 
smith, and one a tailor; and these might have brought their 
trades with them out of England. Bradford is mentioned 
in the records ns a fustian-maker. But another authority 
tells us that while he was at Amsterdam, he "stooped to 
difiiculties in learning and serving of a I'renchraan at the 
working of silks;" and that when he came of age — which 
was after their arrival at Leyden — he sold his estate in En- 
gland and "set up for himself" in some business (perhaps 
the same "working of silks"), which proved to him unfor- 
tunate.' Brewster, the scholar and courtier, who had for- 

' Mather, "Magnalia," i., 111. 



230 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII, 

inerly passed through the cities of Holland as an attache of 
the English embassy, " suffered much hardship after he had 
spent the most of his means, having a great charge and 
many children," and being, because of his former condition 
and course of life, "not so fit for many employments as oth- 
ers were, especially such as were toilsome and laborious." 
Yet he was always cheerful and contented. After a few 
years, his familiarity with Latin enabled him to support him- 
self comfortably by teaching English to students in the uni- 
versity, " both Danes and Germans," for whom he seems to 
have drawn up an English grammar in Latin. He also ob- 
tained means to establish a printing-office, where books were 
])rinted in Latin and in English, the English books being 
sometimes such as could not be safely printed in England.' 
Though it can hardly be supposed that he was either com- 
positor or pressman, he was so much of a printer that the 
books from his establishment attest his skill in the art. His 
partner in that business — apparently a sleeping partner who 
supplied the cajiital — was Thomas Brewer, " a gentleman of 
a good house, both of land and living," who was himself a 
sojourner in the Netherlands for conscience' sake, who had 
many friends there, and had become a member of the uni- 
versity in Leyden, and who was expending his wealth freely 
in the service of religion. ^ 

When the Pilgrims had established themselves in Leyden, 
the office of pastor in their church was vacant. At Scrooby 
they had Clyfton for pastor and Robinson for teacher. So 
while they sojourned at Amsterdam, if they assembled by 
themselves instead of joining temporarily with the church al- 
ready there, they had the same officers. But when they de- 
termined to make another removal, Clyfton was unwilling to 
remove with them. He was beginning to be an old man, 
though he was not so old as he seemed to his younger and 

' Bradford, p. 412, 413. 

= Waddington, "Hidden Church," p. 210-227. 



A.D. 1609.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 231 

more enterprising brethren. Bradford, who revered him as 
liis spiritual father, and, while yet a child, had been under 
his earnest ministry, says of him : "He was a grave and fa- 
therly old man when he first came into Holland, having a 
great white beard ; and j^ity it was that such a reverend old 
man should be forced to leave his country, and at those years 
to go into exile. But it was his lot ; and he bore it patient- 
ly." At the age of fifty-six, he did not feel that he was 
called to make another removal. Perhaps he differed from 
Robinson and others of that company in their foresight of 
" the flames of contention that Avere like to break out " be- 
tween Johnson and Ainsworth ; for afterward, when that 
contention had arrived at its crisis, he and the church, in 
which he once held the foremost place, were on opposite 
sides. Certainly he was " settled at Amsterdam " so much 
to his own satisfaction that "he was loath to remove any 
more," When the Pilgrims removed from that city, he was 
amicably dismissed to the ancient church ; and there, some 
three years later, he succeeded Ainsworth in the oflice of 
teacher. 

The vacancy made by the dismissal of Clyfton was filled 
by the election of Robinson to the oflice of pastor. Although 
the pastor-elect had been " in holy orders " before he became 
a Separatist, and had been ordained again when the church 
called him to minister as its teacher, his induction to another 
oflice required (in his opinion and in that of the church) a 
new ordination. Instead of being " installed " over the 
church, he was ordained to a definite oflice in the church. 
A minister who is already a member in a classical presby- 
tery may be publicly put in charge of one of the congrega- 
tions governed by that presbytery, and the ceremony will 
be an installation ; but such was not the introduction of the 
Pilgrim pastor into his office. Having been designated by 
the uplifted hands of the brotherhood (xetporoWa), he received 
also " the laying on of hands " (x^ipo-^effia) by the authority 
which Christ had given to the church itself The oflice of 



232 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII. 

teacher, made vacant when Robinson became pastor, was not 
tilled — probably because no other man among them had 
received the education which they required as a qualifica- 
tion for the work of a teaching elder. Brewster was 
thenceforward (perhaps had been before) the ruling elder, 
and in that capacity he was a colleague -bishop with the 
l)astor. They had also " three able men for deacons." John 
Carver was one of them, and Samuel Fuller, their physician, 
was another.^ 

As, in England, their place of meeting had been Brewster's 
great manor-house, so, in Leyden, not long after their re- 
moval thither, a large house was purchased by John Robin- 
son and three others — whether with their private means or 
as agents for the community, we can only conjecture; and 
that house seems to have been at once the pastor's residence 
and the meeting-house of the church. Recent investigations 
have ascertained the locality with great exactness.^ It was 
near the Peter's-church, being just across the street from 
the "clock-house" (or campanile) of that grand old edifice — 
a cathedral which then had stood five hundred years, and 
which, even now, may stand five hundred years more. A 
few rods distant, in one direction, was Brewster's printing- 

' Robinson, Works, vol. i., "Memoir," p. xxix., xxx. ; also p. 452, 453; 
Bradford, p. 17, 413. Bradford says of the ruling elder Brewster: "When 
the church had no other minister, he taught twice every Sabbath, and that 
both powerfully and profitably." Teaching was not an ordinary function of 
a ruling elder, but in the absence of pastor and teacher, he presided in public 
worship, and the gift of public speech was regarded as an important qualifica- 
tion for his office. Robinson says (Works, ii., 131) : " We make no dumb 
ministers; neither dare we admit of any man either for a teaching or govern- 
ing elder of whose ability in prayer, prophesying, and debating of church 
matters we have not had good experience." 

= The late George Sumner led the way in exploring Leyden and its 
archives for traces of the Pilgrims in their residence there, and gave his re- 
sults in "Memoirs of the Pilgrims at Leyden." Among those who have 
followed him, none have been more diligent or more successful than Prof. 
fieorge E. Day. of New Haven, and Dr. Henry M. Dexter, of Boston. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN". 233 

office, and near by, in another direction, his residence. Not 
much farther off was Bradford's house, very near the old 
pile known as the university ; for, though the Leyden uni- 
versity was then a modern institution, it occupied a buildmg 
of the Middle Ages, which, till the Reformation, had been a 
monastery. 

The Pilgrims received kind and hospitable treatment in 
Leyden, and enjoyed their sojourn there, notwithstanding 
their many hardships. Sweet was the taste of liberty, thougli 
in a land of strangers ; and sweet was their communion with 
each other and with God, while in their allotted measure 
they were " filling up that which is behind of the afflictions 
of Christ." All that they had suffered together endeared 
them to each other, and was the first stage — as those years 
of "peace and spiritual comfort" were the second — of their 
training for a destiny of which they had, as yet, no definite 
anticipation. Long afterward, when they had begun to in- 
habit a wilderness which, in some sense, they could call their 
own, they cherished a grateful and tender memory of Ley- 
den. " Being thus settled, after many difficulties, they con- 
tinued many years in a comfortable condition, enjoying much 
sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort together 
in the ways of God, ... so as they grew in knowledge and 
other gifts and graces of the Spirit of God, and lived togeth- 
er in peace and love and holiness." Nor were they without 
increase of numbers ; for the report of their peace and spir- 
itual prosperity went abroad among the Separatists still 
persecuted in their native country. "Many came to them 
from England, so as they grew a great congregation," hardly 
less numerous than that in Amsterdam, " And if at any 
time any differences did arise, or offenses broke out (as it can 
not be but that sometimes there will even among the best 
of men), they were ever so met with and nipped in the head 
betimes, or otherwise so well composed, as still love, peace, 
and communion was continued ; or else the church [was] 
purged of those that were incurable and incorrigible, when, 



234 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII. 

after much patience used, no other means would serve — 
which seldom comes to pass."' 

Maintaining a fraternal intercourse with their fellow-exiles 
at Amsterdam, they could not but have some share in the 
troubles which came u]30n that less-favored community. 
The Amsterdam church — partly by reason of its locality, 
partly, perhaps, by the force of some elective affinity — drew 
to itself many of those fugitives or exiles who, having been 
Puritan clergymen in the Church of England, had advanced 
from Puritanism to Separation. Some of these — for exam- 
ple, Clyfton — were never liable to any charge of defection 
from evangelical doctrine or of instability. Others — such as 
Smyth — were erratic, and driven by every Avind of doctrine. 
Others were of the same sort with Robert Browne, zealous 
tor a while, then relapsing into Anglicanism, and, sometimes 
at least, assailing the persecuted church with malignant 
slanders. The Leyden church was " not at all inferior in 
able men ;" but its able men were of another sort — men of 
broad views and generous culture, like Robinson — men of 
wide experience in affairs, like Brewster — practical men, like 
Carver and Bradford, Thus exempted from the disturbing 
influence of men who live in speculations and disputes, and 
who seem to regard religion itself as something to quarrel 
.about, they were trained into the simplest and purest style 
of Christian character; " and, that which was a crown unto 
them, they lived together in peace and love all their days 
without any considerable differences, or any disturbance that 
grew there by but such as was easily healed in love," Yet 
let it not be thought that all the able men in the church at 
Amsterdam Avere contentious, " Many worthy and able men 
there were in both places, who lived and died in obscurity 
in respect of the world, as private Christians, yet were they 
precious in the eyes of the Lord, and also in the eyes of such 
as knew them — whose virtues we," said the "ancient men " 

' Bradford, p. 17, 18. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOUEN AT LEYDEN. 235 

at Plymouth, " with such of you as are their children, do 
follow." 

Among the Pilgrims there was no serious division on that 
question about the powers of elders or church-overseers which 
was so contentiously debated at Amsterdam. ^ When the 
contention had become chronic, the minority (for so we may 
call the party opposing Johnson's claim of power) proposed 
that the church at Leyden should be sent for to hear the 
question debated and to give advice. This proposal was, 
substantially, a request for a mutual council ; but the major- 
ity preferred that the Leyden church should either interpose 
uninvited, or come at the invitation of the discontented 
party. After some hesitation, about thirty members of the 
Amsterdam church subscribed a letter inviting the Leyden 
church to come, to hear all parties, and to give such advice 
as might be needful. In other words, the minority called an 
ex parte council. They thought that their teacher, Ains- 
worth, though disliking their pastor's new doctrine, was not 
sufficiently resolute in his opposition to it, " hoping rather 
to pacify his colleague by moderation, than by opposition to 
stop him in his intended course, and fearing lest he should 
give encouragement to the too violent oppositions of some 
brethren " with whom he agreed in opinion on the main 
question. But the Leyden church was reluctant. Listead 
of complying at once with the invitation, they wrote to the 
church at Amsterdam, asking for information, and " signify- 
ing their unwillingness to interpose save upon a due and 
necessary calling, and under the conditions of best hope of 
success." At last, Robinson and Brewster went, first of 
themselves, and afterward at the request of Ainsworth and 
his friends, being sent by the church of which they were the 
elders, and " delivering the church's message," reisroving 
what they judged evil in the Amsterdam church, " and that " 
— as tliey confess in a review of the whole story — " with 

' See chap. xi. 

Q 



236 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. Xll. 

some vehemence." The result of that neighborly visit was 
an agreement — somewhat informal pei-haps, but proj^osed by 
Johnson, and distinctly approved by the othei- churcli — that 
those of the minority who could not with a good conscience 
submit to the presbyterian rule which their pastor was in- 
troducing, should be freely dismissed to the church at Ley- 
den. Bat when it appeared that the persons thus dismissed 
would hold themselves free to reside still at Amsterdam, the 
agreement was repudiated by Johnson and his friends. Oth- 
er proposals for accommodation were subsequently discuss- 
ed in letters between the two churches, and the correspond- 
ence was continued till Ainsworth and his friends withdrew, 
and became another church in Amsterdam. 

The story of this appeal from one church to another, and 
of the response, is significant of the relations which were to 
exist among voluntary churches, mutually independent, as 
well as independent of thrones and hierarchies. Churches 
which have no other charter than tlie New Testament, which 
derive their authority, each for itself, directly from Christ, 
and which profess that to its own master each must stand 
or fall, may nevertheless acknowledge a fraternal responsi- 
bility to each other — may ask one of another, and may give 
advice or other help in case of need — may fraternally ad- 
monish or rebuke each other in case of fault — may co-oper- 
ate by mutual helpfulness or combined effort in behalf of 
common interests — without any surrender of their independ- 
ence, and without organizing a superior and centralized gov- 
ernment over all. 

It was for the sake of assembling freely to worship God 
according to the simplicity and purity of the New Testa- 
ment, and to be edified by the ministry of the word, that 
the pilgrims had escaped out of England into that land of 
strangers. What, then, were their advantages and means 
of Christian culture? As a religious community in Leyden, 
they were almost isolated. The church at Amsterdam was 
forty miles away; and wliilo tlicy recognized the fratiriinl 



A,D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 237 

bond of communion with it, they did not long for a closer 
proximity to it. Simultaneously with their coming to the 
city, a Scotch congregation was established there, with Rob- 
ert Durie as its minister; but though, since the death of 
Queen Elizabeth, the King of Scots had been also King of 
England, the two kingdoms were not yet united, and tlie na- 
tives of each were foreigners to the other. English Puritans 
might fraternize with the National Church of Scotland, but 
both alike abhorred what they called Brownism. The rela- 
tion of the Pilgrims to their Dutch neighbors seems to have 
been always friendly; but the diversity of language was, foi- 
the first few years at least, a bar to religious communion with 
them; and though Robinson acknowledged that the Dutch 
churches were formed on the principle of separation from 
the world, he nevertheless testified, and his church with him, 
against certain deviations from primitive simplicity and 
purity in the practice of those churches. Ecclesiastically, 
the Pilgrims at Leyden were alone. They had none of the 
strength that comes with the consciousness of being com- 
prehended in a wide and powerful organization. All their 
strength was in their principles, and in the confidence that 
God would sustain their testimony for the liberty and purity 
of his church. 

And what were their arrangements and order as a wor- 
shiping assembly ? How frequently they met for prayer 
and informal conference in order to mutual edification can 
not be definitely known ; but we know that to tliem, not less 
than to the Puritans who disowned them, the first day of 
the week Avas a holy Sabbath. They observed that day with 
a stricter abstinence from labor and amusements than was 
practiced by the Calvinists of Holland. Coming together 
on that day in tlieir pastor's house, they felt, as few congre- 
gations can feel, the closeness of the bond which made them 
one in Christ. On other days and in other places they heard 
on all sides, and were learning to speak, "a sti'ange and un- 
couth language;" but in that meeting-place, every word on 



238 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. Xll. 

their lips or in their ears was their own dear mother tongue — 
dearer for their being in a land of strangers, and dearer yet 
for the liberty they had gained by exile. One in the most 
intimate fellowship of faith, and in the fellowship of suffer- 
ing for Christ, they were most tenderly conscious of their 
unity W'hen, coming together as " strangers and pilgrims," 
they felt most deeply their seclusion from all the world with- 
out. The arrangements of the room when they met for wor- 
ship gave it an informal consecration, and presented to their 
eyes the simple order of their church. Official seats were 
there for the elders (Robinson and Bi'cwster), raised on some 
slight platform, and for the deacons at the sacramental ta- 
ble. Nor was the congregation seated without arrangement, 
for w'e may assume that they had even then a custom of as- 
signing a seat to every worshiper in some orderly method. 
At the appointed hour the pastor " led the assembly in prayer 
and the giving of thanks," according to the Pauline rubric: 
"that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and 
giving of thanks be made for all men." Then their voices 
were blended in one of the Old Testament psalms, translated 
by Henry Ains worth out of the Hebrew into English stan- 
zas, with great fidelity, but with little felicity of versification. 
Next came "the exercise of the Word," in conformity with 
another rubric : " Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, 
to doctrine."^ Two or three chapters of Holy Scripture were 
read, " with a brief explanation of their meaning," The pas- 
tor — in those years the only teaching elder — taking some 
passage for a text, expounded and enforced it in a sermon. 
But, in that church, a ministry of gifts was recognized as 
well as a ministry of offices ; and, under the presidency of 
the elders, brethren not in office might " prophesy." The 
truth held forth by the pastor might be further illustrated 
and applied, sometimes by respectful questions on one point 
or another, sometimes by a word of testimony or of exhorta- 

' 1 Tim. ii., 1 ; iv., 13. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 239 

tion. Another psalm followed " the exercise of the Word." 
Then came the ministration of baptism or the Lord's Sup- 
per ; for to believing hearers the promises of the Word were 
" sealed " in the sacraments. Nor was their worship ended 
without the contribution ; for that act of sacrifice — each giv- 
ing according to his ability and his readiness of mind to the 
support of the church and the relief of its poor — was neces- 
sary to the completeness of the service. 

Besides the two services on the Lord's day every week, 
there was a similar service on a secular day, for it is in the 
record of the pastor's labors that "he taught thrice a week." 
A church so conducted was a school of religious knowledge 
and of intellectual discipline as well as of devotion. Preach- 
ing in those days and in that church was not rhetoric nor 
sentiment alone, but literally "teaching." That church was 
in some sort a school of the prophets — for it discovered and 
tested, and at the same time cultivated, the gifts of wisdom 
and of utterance in its members by its "exercise of proph- 
ecy,'" We may well believe that the members of that 

' What the "exercise of prophecy" was, in the church at Leyden, is ex- 
plained in Robinson's Catechism. To the question, "Who are to open and 
apply the Scriptures in the church?" the answer is: "1. Principally, the 
bishops or elders, who, by the Word of Life, are to feed the flock both by 
teaching and government. — Acts xx., 28. 2. Such as are out of office, in 
the exercise of prophecy." Several arguments from the Scriptures are given 
in proof of that exercise, the fourth and last being an enumeration of "the 
excellent ends which, by this means, are to he obtained : as, 1. The glory of 
God in the manifestation of his manifold graces. — 1 Pet. iv., 10, 11. 2. 
That the gifts of the Spirit in men be not quenched. — 1 Thess. v., 19. 3. 
For the fitting and trial of men for the ministry. — 1 Tim. iii., 2. 4. For the 
preserving pure of the doctrine of the church, which is more endangered if 
some one or two alone may only be heard and speak. — 1 Cor. xiv., 24, 25. 
5. For debating and satisfying of doubts, if any do arise. 6. For the edi- 
fying of the church and the conversion of others. — Acts ii., 42; Luke iv., 
21-23." "A prophet in this sense" is "he that hath a gift of the Spirit to 
speak unto edification, exhortation, and comfort." — 1 Cor. xiv., 4, 24, 25. 
" The order of this exercise " is " that it be performed after the public min- 
istry by the teachers, and under their direction and moderation, whose duty 



240 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, XII. 

church, with Robhison for pastor and teacher, "grew in 
knowledge and other gifts and graces."^ 

It was truly a great work which Robinson was perform- 
ing in those years of exile, training the Pilgrims for their 
destiny of suifering and of achievement. What his influence 
was upon them is testified by their own chronicler in words 
too full of pathos not to be transcribed: "Such was the 
mutual love and reciprocal respect that this worthy man had 
to his flock and his flock to him . . . that it was hard to judge 
whether he delighted more in having such a people, or they 
in having such a pastor. His love was great toward them, 
and his care was always bent for their best good both for 
soul and body. For, besides his singular abilities in divine 
things, wherein he excelled, he was also very able to give 
directions in civil afiairs; by which means he was very 
helpful to their outward estates, and so was every way as a 
common father unto them. And none did more oftend him 
than those that were close and cleaving to themselves, and 
retired from the common good ; as also such as would be 
stiff" and rigid in matters of outward order, and inveigh 
against the evil of others, and yet be remiss in themselves, 
and not so careful to express a virtuous conversation. The 
cliurch, in like manner, had ever a reverent regard to him, 
and had him in precious estimation as his worth and wis- 
dom did deserve ; and though they esteemed him highly 
while he lived and labored among them, yet much more [did 
they] after his death when they came to feel the want of his 

it is, if any thing be obscure, to open it ; if doubtful, to clear it ; if unsound, 
to refuse it; if unprofitable, to supply what is wanting, as they are able. — I 
Cor. xiv., 3, 37; Acts xiii., 15." — Works, iii., 432, 433. 

'■ An account of the order o, public worship in the Amsterdam church is 
found in the Appendix to Robinson's Works, iii., 48"). It is a statement 
which Clyfton made while he was teacher of that church after the with- 
drawal of Ainsworth and his friends. It omits "the exercise of prophecy;" 
and that omission was, probably, a characteristic of Johnson's church as 
distinguished from Robinson's and from Ainsworth's. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 241 

help, and saw, by woeful experience, what a treasure they 
had lost." ^ 

When the Pilgrims had become established in Leyden, 
their pastor began to frequent the lectures in the university 
— especially the lectures by the two professors of theology. 
The controversy in wliich Arminius and Gomarus had been 
antagonists at first, w^as still kept up in the universities, 
and nowhere more learnedly or more persistently than 
there, w here Arminius himself had propounded the doctrines 
which afterward were called by his name. The two profess- 
ors of theology, Polyander, defender of the old Calvinism, 
and Episcopius, champion of the obnoxious novelties in doc- 
trine, were agitating the nniversity with disputes and con- 
troversial lectures, Robinson, b}^ carefully hearing both 
sides, by familiar conference with the Leyden divines, and 
by his own profound and accurate thinking, made himself 
master of the questions at issue. He saw, or thought he 
saw, that the Arminian theories concerning the relation of 
God's purpose and power to the going on of nature and of 
human history, were shallow ; and it began to be understood 
that "the preacher of the English Society by the Belfry" 
was an acute and strenuous disputant. In the progress of 
that war of dogmas, Episcopius, confident in himself and 
in his cause, resorted to an expedient which had not then 
become obsolete in universities. He set forth a series of 
theses, or propositions challenging dispute, which he was to 
defend against whoever might assail them. Such was his 
intellectual stature and weight, and such his "nimbleness" 
in that sort of fencing, that Polyander, and " the chief 
preachers of the city," not choosing to encounter in their 
own persons the chances of defeat, entreated Robinson to 
enter the lists against the challenger. Declining their re- 
quest at first with the modesty of " a stranger," he yielded 
to their importunity, and " prepared himself against the 

' Bradford, p. 18. 



242 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII. 

time." The disputation was, of course, in Latin, the univer- 
sity language; so that tlie Dutchman liad no accidental ad- 
vantage over the Englisliman. On the appointed day there 
was "a great and public audience" as at a commencement; 
and the firm belief of the Pilgrims, long cherished in their 
loving memory, was that, by the help of the Lord, their 
pastor, in his defense of the truth, foiled tha.t great adver- 
sary, and " put him to an apparent nonplus." It was also 
affirmed that on two similar occasions he achieved a similar 
success. "The which," says Bradford, "as it caused many 
to praise God that the truth had so famous victory, so it 
procured him much honor and respect from those learned 
men, and others that loved tlie truth." ^ 

The records of the university show that Robinson was in 
due form — but not till he had been six years a resident in 
Leyden — incorporated with that renowned society of learned 
men, and so became a partner in its privileges. Thenceforth 
he was no longer subject to the city magistrates, and was 
so far exempted from taxation that he might have, free of 
town and state duties, half a tun of beer every month, and 
about ten gallons of wine every three months.^ 

Hoornbeek, a learned theologian of that age, himself a 
professor in the same university, confirms the testimony of 
the Pilgrims as to the estimation in which their pastor was 
held among the learned men of Leyden. He says: "John 
Robinson was most dear to us while he lived, was on famil- 
iar terms with the Leyden theologians, and was greatly es- 
teemed by them. He wrote, moreover, in a variety of ways 
against the Arminians, and was the fi-equent opponent and 
bold antagonist of Episcopius himself in the university." 

1 Bradford, p. '20, 21. 

^ Sumner, p. 18, 19. The record, as transcribed by Mr. Sumner is : 
1615 
Sep. 5° JoANXKS RoBiNTSONCs. Anglus. 

coss. pennissu. Ann. xxxix. 

Stud. Theol. alit familiam. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOUEX AT LEYDEX. 243 

It was not till after his removal into Holland that Robin- 
son began to be an author. His first publication was almost 
coincident in date with his settlement in Leyden. Joseph 
Hall, who had been a companion with him at the university, 
and who afterward became bishop of Norwich, published 
(1608), when the Pilgrims had just escaped from their perse- 
cutors, a letter of rebuke and admonition addressed to 
Smyth and Robinson as " ringleaders of the late separation 
at Amsterdam." To that "censorious epistle" Robinson 
replied Avith manifest ability, and with more of calmness and 
courtesy than was usual in the controversial writings of that 
age. Hall made his answer in an elaborate work, entitled, 
"A Common Apologie of the Church of England against 
the Unjust Challenges of the Overjust Sect commonly called 
Brownists" — a work of which Robinson took no public 
notice save in the preface of his reply to another and more 
earnest adversary, but upon which John Milton made some 
scorching observations, at a later period, in his controversy 
with the same author. Notwithstanding the position of 
Bishop Hall in English literature, as well as in the Church 
of England, he exhibits no superiority in the controversy 
with Robinson, save the superiority of arrogance. In argu- 
ment, in style, in courtesy, and in charity, the Pilgrim pastor 
has the advantage over his flippant and insolent adversar}'-. 
One sentence from the last page of the "Common Apologie" 
may suftice to show what sort of an adversary Hall was : 
"The mastership of the hospital at Norwich, or a lease from 
that city — sued for with repulse — might have procured that 
this separation fi-om the communion, government, and wor- 
ship of the Church of England should not have been made 
by John Robinson." Well said ! rector of Halstead, looking 
for preferment! Is it not a manly and charitable imputa- 
tion? Why was it that John Robinson, instead of aspiring 
to some fat rectory, sued for the mastership of that hospital? 
Why was it that he could not have the humble place for 
which he sued? If he Avere governed by mercenary consid- 



244 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XII, 

eratious, what hindered him from talcing the side which had 
mercenary considerations to offer? By taking that side, you 
are prospering in the world, and are to be — ere long — a bish- 
op and a peer of the realm; while he, by taking the other side, 
has suffered the loss of all that you have or hope for in this 
life, and has become an outlaw and an exile. 

Something is added to our knowledge of what Robinson 
must have been to the Pilgrims, as their pastor and teacher, 
by the series of his published writings, beginning with the 
first year of his exile and ending with the year of his death. 
Two of his most elaborate works were written to defend the 
position of the Separatists against Puritan assailants — " Re- 
formists," he called them, in distinction from " Conformists." ^ 
Another, originally published in Latin and afterward trans- 
lated by himself, was especially designed to show both the 
differences and the agreement between the churches of the 
English exiles called Brownists and the Reformed Dutch 
churches.- Other works of his — some very elaborate — were 
WM-itten in controversy with SejJaratists who carried their 

' " A Justification of Separation from tlie riiurch of England, against Mr. 
Richard Bernard his Invective, entituled ' Tlie 8e])aratists' Schisme. By 
John Robinson. ' And God saw that the light was good, and God sepa- 
rated between the light and between the darkness.' Gen. i., 4. 'What 
communion hath light with darkness?' 2 Cor. vi., 14. Anno D. IGIO." 

"The People's Plea for the Exercise of Prophecy, against Mr. John 
Yates his Monopolie. By John Robinson. 'Follow after charity, and de- 
sire spiritual gifts, but rather that yee may prophesy.' 1 Cor. xiv., 1. Print- 
ed in the yeai-e 1(!I8." 

^ " A Just and Necessarie Apologie of Certain Christians, no less contume- 
liously than commonly called Brownists or Barrowists. By Mr. John Rob- 
inson, Pastor of the English Church at Leyden, first published in Latin, in 
his and the church's name over which he was set, after translated into En- 
glish by himself, and now republished for the special and common good of 
our own countrimen. ' O blessed is he that prudently attendeth to the poore 
weakling.' Psalm xli., 2. Printed in the yeere of our Lord MDC.XXV." 

The title of the original work was, " Apologia justa et necessaria qnorun- 
dam Christianorum, ax^ue contumeliose ac communiter dictorum Brownista- 
rum sive Barrowistarum, per Johannem Robinsonum, Anglo-Leidenensem, 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN' AT LETDEN". 245 

separation too far, and had gone beyond the true landmarks 
in matters of Christian doctrine or of Christian fellowship. 
Perhaps his works in tliis line — though now of little value 
save as historic documents — were in their immediate inHu- 
euce and in their remoter effects more important than any 
other productions of his pen.> He opposed, and in a good 
measure subdued, the ultraisni of some who had preceded 
liim, or who were his contemporaries. The extravagant ve- 
liemence of Robert Browne, and the tremendous invectives of 
Barrowe, found no place on his pages. 

Thus he became a reformer of the Separation ; and to him 
is the honor due of having introduced into Congregational- 
ism that more catholic spirit, those broader views of the 
kingdom of Clirist, and that mo]-e conservative tendency, by 
which it is distinguished from the strict Independency which 
lield no sort of religious communion with any who had not 
renounced and forsaken the national churches. 

suo et ecclesite nomine cui prreficitur. Psa xli., 2 : ' Beatus qui attendit ad 
attenuatum.' Anno Domini 161!)." 

' " Of Religious Communion, Private and Public. With the silencing of 
the clamors raised by Mr. Thomas Helwisse against our retaining the Bap- 
tism received in England and administering of Baptism unto infants. As 
also, A Survey of the Confession of Faith published in certain conclusions 
by the remainders of Mr. Smith's company. By John Robinson. ' The 
simple believeth every word: but the prudent looketh well to his going.' 
Prov. xiv., 15. Printed anno 1614." 

"A Defense of the Doctrine propounded by the Synode at Dort, against 
John Murton and his associates in a treatise entituled ' A Description what 
God,' etc., with the Refutation of their Answer to a writing touching Bap- 
tism. By John Robinson. Printed in the year 1624." 

" A Treatise of the Lawfulness of Hearing of the Ministers in the Church 
of England. Penned by that Learned and Reverent Divine, Mr. John Rob- 
inz, late Pastor to the English Church of God in Leyden. Printed ac- 
cording to the copie that was found in his studie after his decease, and now 
published for the common good. Together with a Letter written by the same 
Authour, and approved by his Church, which followeth after this Treatise. 
'Judge not according to pearance, but judge righteous judgment.' John 
vii. , 24. Printed anno 1634." 



246 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [cH. XII. 

The only one of Robinson's works which was not contro- 
versial, or in some other way occasional, was published in 
the year of his death ; and, inasmuch as it bears no indica- 
tion of its being posthumous, the revision of it, while it was 
in press, must have been almost the latest labor of his life.'^ 
His " Essays, or Observations Divine and Moral," are weighty 
with thought, rich in knowledge of mankind, adorned with 
allusions to all sorts of authors, ancient or contemporaneous, 
and sparkling occasionally with a kind of grave Avit. Their 
style is sententious, epigrammatic, and more j)olished than 
the author uses in his controversial writings. An intelligent 
reader can hardly avoid thinking that somehow they resem- 
ble those incomparable Essays by Lord Bacon which Arch- 
bishop Whately has so largely expounded. Nor would it 
be easy to say why they are not as worthy of a permanent 
place in English literature as the Essays of Bishop Hall, the 
"censorious" opponent of the exiled Separatist. 

Robinson's " Essays " are, probably, of all his writings that 
remain to us, the most significant in relation to the quality of 
his official " teaching." It is not likely that any of his ser- 
mons were committed to writing ; certainly no specimen of 
them has been preserved. His controversial works show 
great familiarity with the text-book of all Christian teach- 
ing, a common-sense feculty of interpretation, a habit of log- 
ical exactness and acuteness which is nowhere more impor- 
tant than in the preparation of sermons, and a practiced abil- 
ity in dealing with the profoundest themes of theology. But 

' "New Essays; or Observations Divine and Moral, collected out of the 
Holy Scriptures, ancient and modern writers both divine and human ; as also 
out of the great volume of men's manners : Tending to the furtherance of 
knowledge and virtue. By John Robinson. ' Give instruction to a wise 
man, and he will be yet wiser ; teacli a just man, and he will increase in 
learning.' Prov. ix., 9. ' Experientia docet aut nocet.' Printed in the 
year 1638." 

Three editions, at least, of this work were published in seventeen years. 
The foregoing is the title of the- second edition. 



A.I). 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN. 247 

it is difficult to believe that his "teaching" in the clmrch 
was always or often iy the same strain with his "Defense of 
the Doctrine pro2:)ouudecl by the Synod at Dort." The "Es- 
says," on the contrary, seem as if he had condensed into them 
the thoughts given out or to be given out, more diffusely 
and more familiarly, in his sacied work of teaching. Some 
of them are theological ; all, with hardly an exception, are 
strictly religious in theme an^ spirit. We might even take 
them as digested from the notes or briefs which (not lying 
before him, but retained in memory) were his preparation for 
feeding his fiock with divine knowledge. 

For specimens, then, of the matter and quality of the dis- 
courses which the Pilgrims in Leyden heard from their pas- 
tor, we turn to those "Essays." Thus we learn that while 
he did not refrain from teaching in the church those trans- 
cendent truths concerning God's eternal thought and will 
which are in all ages the themes of insatiable speculation, he 
could nevertheless set forth in lucid and winning statement 
the love of God. 

"Love in the creature," said he, "ever presupposeth some 
good, true or apparent, in the thing loved, by which that af- 
fection of union is drawn, as the iron by the loadstone; but 
the love of God, on the contrary, causeth all good, wrought 
or to be wrought, in the creature. He first loveth ns in the 
free purpose of his will, and thence worketli good for and in 
us; and then loves us actually for his own good work for 
and in us ; and so still more and more for his own further 
work. And hence ariseth the unchangeableness of God's 
love toward us, because it is founded in himself and in the 
stableness of the good pleasure of his own will. And al- 
though the arguments of comfort be great which we draw 
from the certain knowledge of our love to him, yet are those 
infinitely greater which are taken from the consideration of 
his love to us. . . . And hereupon it was that the sisters of 
Lazarus, seeking help for their sick brother, sent Christ word, 
not that he who loved him (though that were not nothing), 



248 GENESIS OF THE KEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XII. 

but that ' he whom ho loved was sick.' . . . He whom God 
loves, though he know it not, is a happy man ; he that knows 
it, knows himself to be happy. Which caused the apostle to 
make, in his own name, and in the names of all the 'beloved 
of God' (Rom. viii., 35-39), that glorious insultation over all 
the enemies of his and their happiness, that they could not 
separate him or them — not from the power, or wisdom, or 
holiness, but not — 'from the love of God which is in Christ 
Jesus.' From this ' love of God,' as from a springhead, issu- 
oth all good, both for grace and glory. Yea, by it (which is 
more), all evil, by all creatures intended or done against us, 
is turned to good to us. . . . By reason of it ' the stones of the 
field are at league with us, and the beasts of the field are at 
peace with us;' yea, even the very sword that killeth us, the 
fire that burnetii us, and the water that drowneth us, is in a 
kind of spiritual and invisible league whh us, to do us good. 
... As we may certainly know that the sun shines, by the 
beams and heat thereof below, though we climb not into 
heaven to see, so we may have certain knowledge of God's 
gracious love toward us without searching farther than our 
own hearts and ways, and by finding them truly and effect- 
ually turned from sin to God."^ 

See in what terms the pastor, teaching his flock what 
"faith, hope, and charity" ought to be in them, might speak 
of Christian love : 

" As love is the affection of union, so it makes, after a sort, 
the loving and loved one ; such being the force thereof as 
that he that loveth suffereth a kind of conversion into that 
which he loveth, and by frequent meditation of it uniteth it 
with his understanding and affection. Thus, to love God, is 
to become godly, and to have the mind, after a sort, deified, 
'being made partakers of the divine nature.' . . . Oh! how 
happy is that man, who, by the sweet feeling of ' the love of 
God shed abroad into his heart by the Holy Ghost,' is thereby, 

' Works, i., 4-7. 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOURN AT LEYDEN". 249 

as by the most strong cords of heaven, drawn effectually and 
with all the heart, to love God again who hath loved him 
first, and so becomes one with him, and rests upon him, for 
all good," .'. . 

"Love is the loadstone of love; and the most ready and 
compendious way to be beloved of others is to love them 
first. They, taking knowledge thereof, will be effectually 
drawn to answerable good-will, if they be not harder than 
iron, and such as have cast off the chains and bonds of com- 
mon humanity; for even 'publicans and sinners love those 
that love them.' Yea, admit thy love of them never come 
to their knowledge, yet will God, by the invisible hand of 
his providence, bend their hearts by mutual affection unto 
thee, at least so far as is good for thee. . . . We must not 
be like the Pharisees who, instead of enlarging their own af- 
fections, straightened [narrowed] the law of loving their 
neighbors unto such as loved them or dwelt within a certain 
compass of them; but we must account all our neighbors 
that need pity or help from us ; and our Christian neighbors 
and brethren also, if the Lord have received them, though 
they be neither minded in all things as we are, nor minded 
towards us as we are towai-ds them."^ 

The Separatists were charged sometimes with heresy, al- 
ways with schism. On the topic of " heresy and schism," 
the' pastor of the Pilgrims might hold forth light in words 
like these : 

" Men are often accounted heretics with greater sin through 
want of charity in the judges than in the judged through 
defect of faith. Of old, some have been branded heretics for 
holding antipodes; others for holding the original of .the 
soul by traduction ; others for thinking that :Mary the moth- 
er of Christ had other children by her husband Joseph— the 
first being a certain truth ; and the second a philosophical 
doubt ; and the third, though an error, yet neither against 



Works, i.. (U-GG. 



250 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XII. 

foundation nov post of the Scripture's building. As there 
are certain elements and foundations of the oracles of God 
and of Christian faith, which must first be laid, and upon 
which other truths are to be built, so must not 'the founda- 
tion be confounded with the walls or roof; nor [must] er- 
rors lightly be made fundamental or unavoidably damnable. 
Yea, who can say with how little and imperfect faith in 
Christ, both for degree and parts, God both can and doth 
save the sincere in heart, whose salvation depends not upon 
the perfection of the instrument, faith, but of the object, 
Christ ? On the contrary, there are some vulgar and com- 
mon errors, though less severely censured, which are appar- 
ently damnable — as, by name, for a man to believe and ex- 
pect mercy from God and salvation by Christ, though going 
on in affected ignorance of, or profane disobedience to God's 
commandments." 

..." If only an uncharitable heart make an inichar- 
itable person before God, and a proud heart a proud per- 
son, then he who, upon due examination and certain knowl- 
edge of his heart, finds and feels the same truly disposed to 
union with all Christians so far as possibly he can see it 
lawful — though through error or frailty he may step aside 
into some by-path — yet hath that person a siqyersedeas from 
the Lord in his bosom, securing him from being attached 
as a schismatical person, and so found in the court of 
heaven — Avhat blame soever he may bear from men npon 
earth, or correction from God, for his failing, upon infirmity, 
therein. 

"No man can endure to be withdrawn from, nor easily 
dissented from by another, in his way of religion ; in which, 
above all other things, he makes account that he himself 
draws nearest to God. Therefore to do this causelessly (for 
not the separation but the cause makes the schismatic), 
though out of error or scrupulosity, is evil ; more, to do it 
out of wantonness of mind, or lust to contend, or affectation 



A.D. 1609-18.] THE SOJOUKX AT LEYDEX. 251 

of singularity ; most of all, to do it out of proud contempt or 
cruel revenge against others."' 

The last essay is "Of Death." To most of those who had 
loved and honored the writer as their pastor, the first read- 
ing of it must have been when they were " sorrowing most 
of all that they should see his face no more." Surely they 
must have seemed to hear some of his tones and cadences, 

as if 

" From the sky, serene and far, 

A voice fell like a falling star," 

while they read, through their tears, these latest words of 
teaching and of comfort from himvvho had so bravely borne 
with them the heat and burden of their day : 

" ' Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his 
saints,' when they die for, or in, faith and a good conscience ; 
as the gold, melting and dissolving in the furnace, is as- much 
esteemed by the goldsmith as any in his shop or purse. 
Precious also it is while they live, and that which God will 
not lightly suffer to befall them. And if he put their tears 
in his bottle, he will not neglect their blood, nor easily suffer 
it to be shed ; neither doth death, when it comes, part him 
and them, though it part man and man, yea man and wife, 
yea man in himself, soul and body. Friends show themselves 
faithful in sticking to their friends in sickness and all other 
afflictions ; but they, how affectionate soever, must leave 
them in death, and are glad to remove them, and have 'their 
dead buried out of their sight.' But the fruit of God's love 
reacheth unto death itself — in which he doth his beloved 
ones the greatest good, when friends can do no more for 
them. 

" He that said, ' Before death and the funeral no man is 
happy,' spake the truth, as he meant, of the happiness which 
can be found in worldly things. But both he, and they who 
have so admired his saying, should have considered that he 

' Works, i., 70, 72. 

R 



252 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [ClI. XII. 

who is not happy before death in worldly things, can not be 
happy in them by it which deprives liim of them all, and of 
life itself, which is better than they, and for which they are. 
But miserable, indeed, is the happiness whereof a man hath 
neither beginning nor certainty but by ceasing to be a man. 
The godly are truly happy both in life and death, the wicked 
in neither. 

" We are not to mourn for the death of our Christian 
friends, as they which are without hope, either in regard of 
them or of ourselves ; — not of them, because such as are asleep 
with Jesus, God will bring with him to a more glorious life, 
in which we (in our time and theirs) shall ever remain with 
the Lord and them; — not of ourselves, as if, because they had 
left us, God had left us also. But we should take occa- 
sion by their deaths to love this world the less, out of which 
they are taken, and heaven the more, whither they are gone 
before us, and where we shall ever enjoy them. Amen." 



A.D. 1017-20.] STKUGGLES AND SACKIFICES. 253 



CHAPTER XIII. 

STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES IN A GREAT ATTEMPT, 

So long as the Pilgrims remained in HoUancl, they never 
ceased to feel that they were simply exiles from their coun- 
try — strangers in a strange land. They were ever waiting, 
with hope deferred, for some such change in the policy of 
the English government as would permit them to go home. 
None of them could forget that the change of policy which 
took place when Mary was succeeded by her half-sister Eliza- 
beth brought back hundreds of English fugitives from all 
parts of Europe. Who could tell how soon the providence 
of God, in whose hand is " the king's heart as the rivers of 
water, and he turneth it whithersoever he will," might open 
the way for their return ? In that hope, they labored and 
struggled ; they ate contentedly the bread of carefulness ; 
they bore each other's burdens, fulfilling the law of Christ ; 
they married and were given in marriage; they greeted the 
birtli of children in their households, and gave them to God 
in baptism ; they buried, in hope of " a better country, even 
a heavenly," many an associate in testimony and in suffering, 
whose eyes had failed with longing for the sight of dear old 
England. In that hope, the church for which they had suf- 
fered, and which encircled them with the bond of its cove- 
nant, grew dearer to them year by year; the simplicity and 
purity of its worship, the fidelity and efficacy of its disci- 
pline, and the constant wealth of " teaching" from its honored 
pastor, were more and more valued by them, as showing 
what might be in England if liberty were there. But gradu- 
ally that hope was receding. While some had found their 
graves in that foreign soil, others were growing old. What 
was to become of their children? What would become of 



254 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII. 

their church ? The end of the twelve-years' truce, which had 
interrupted the long and terrible war of the Dutch with 
Spain for their independence and their religion, was drawing 
near; and then — what? "Taught by experience," they say, 
" those prudent governors [Robinson and Brewster], with sun- 
dry of the sagest members, began both deeply to apprehend 
their present dangers and wisely to foresee the future, and 
think of timely remedy." 

At first, these matters were discussed in private conference 
among the leading minds of the community ; and the more 
they thought and talked in such conference, the stronger did 
the arguments seem for attempting a removal. Twenty-five 
years earlier, even before the latest martyrs of Separation 
were put to death, the thought of migration to America had 
been entertained among the Separatists in England; and pe- 
tition for liberty to form a Separatist colony in America had 
been made to Queen Elizabeth (1592), whose government 
was at that moment contriving the law by which every per- 
sistent Separatist should be compelled to abjure the realm 
and go into banishment,^ There is no evidence that the pe- 
tition was answered, nor that it received any attention from 
the queen or from her ministers. Evidently, those who, at 
that time, were most intent on expelling the " Brownists " 
from England, were unwilling to see them go without their 
being first punished by imprisonment and plundered by for- 
feiture of all their goods — still more unwilling that they 
should have their own schismatic way even in the wilder- 
nesses of America. The persecution which followed the pas- 
sage of the "Act to retain the Queen's subjects in obedience" 
defeated the proposed migration, notwithstanding the sug- 
gestion of the petitioners that in the "far country" where 
they desired to plant themselves, they, while worshiping 
God " as in conscience persuaded by his word," might " also 

' Editor's Prefoce to Morton's "Memorial" as published by the Congrega- 
tional Board of I*ublication. Boston. 1854. 



A.D. 1617.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 255 

do unto her majesty and country great good service, and in 
time also annoy that bloody and persecuting Spaniard about 
the Bay of Mexico." But, at last, the thought, which may 
have been in Penry's mind when he sent his dying messages 
to the brethren in the north countries, and which had been, 
so long, like a seed buried too deep to grow, came into the 
consultations of Robinson and Brewster, with other " sagest 
members" of the Pilgrim church. In view of present and 
impending dangers incident to their lot in Leyden, they were 
thinking of " timely remedy;" and what remedy was there 
but migration from that old world to the new? "Not out 
of new-fangledness, or other such like giddy humor," were 
they " inclined to the conclusion of removal." They found 
themselves urged by "sundry weighty and solid reasons" 
which belong to Instory, and which they have put upon rec- 
ord for us. 

" First, they saw, and found by experience, the hardness 
of the place to be such that tew in comparison would come 
to them, and fewer would bide it out and continue with 
them. For many that came to them — and many more that 
desired to be with them — could not endure that great labor 
and hard fare, with other inconveniences^ which they under- 
went and were contented Avith. But though they loved their 
persons, approved their cause, and honored their sufferings, 
yet they left them — as it were weeping — as Orphah did her 
luother-in-law Naomi ; or as those Romans did Cato in Utica, 
who desired to be excused and borne with though they 
could not all be Catos. Many — though they desired to en- 
joy the ordinances of God in their purity, and the liberty of 
the Gospel with them — yet, alas ! admitted of bondage, with 
danger of conscience, rather than to endure these hardships : 
yea, some preferred and chose the prisons in England rather 
than liberty in Holland with these afflictions. It was thought, 
therefore, that if a better and easier place of living could be 
had, it would draw many, and take away these discourage- 
ments. Yea, their pastor would often say that many of those 



256 GENESIS OF THE NEAV ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XIII. 

who both wrote and preached against them, would practice 
as they did if they were in a place wliere they might have 
liberty and live comfortably," 

Such, then, in their own simple statement, was the first 
consideration urging them to a removal. Their foremost 
thought was for the cause in which they had suffered. Ought 
they not to dare — and perhaps to suffer — greater things in 
the hope of making a refuge for others like-minded with 
themselves ? At the same time, other considerations, drawn 
from their own hardships, aj^parently so ineffective, and from 
their hopes and fears for their children, pointed in the same 
direction. 

The second " weighty and solid reason" was: "They saw 
that, though the people generally bore all these difficulties 
very cheerfully, and with a resolute courage, being in the 
best and strength of their years, yet old age began to steal 
on many of them" — even before the time, hastened by " their 
great and continual labors, with other crosses and soi'rovvs ;" 
and it was becoming evident "that within a few years 
more they would be in danger to scatter by necessities press- 
ing them, or to sink under their burdens, or both. There- 
fore they — like skillful and beaten soldiers — thought it better 
to dislodge betimes to some place of better advantage and 
less danger, if any such could be found." The few who were 
holding these consultations were leaders ; their conference 
was like a council of war. Willing as they Avere, and will- 
ing as their associates were, to struggle and suffer for the 
Gospel, they were not willing to throw their lives away with 
no advantage to the cause, if, by a timely retreat, they could 
gain a more hopeful position. 

The third consideration was still more urgent. "What was 
to become of their children there in Holland ? " As neces- 
sity was a taskmaster over them, so they were forced to be 
taskmasters not only to their servants, but, in a sort, to 
their dearest children — which was not only painful to many 
a loving father and mother, but produced likewise sundry 



A.D. 1617.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 257 

sad and sorrowful cflects. Many of their children that were 
of best dispositions and gracious inclinations, having learned 
to bear the yoke in their youth, and willing to bear part of 
their parents' burden, were so oppressed with their heavy 
labors that, though their minds were free and willing, their 
bodies bowed under the weight and became decrepit, the 
vigor of nature being consumed, as it were, in the bud. But 
that which was more lamentable, and of all sorrows most 
heavy to be borne, was that many of their children, by these 
occasions and the great licentiousness of youth in that coun- 
try, and the manifold temptations of the place, were drawn 
away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous 
courses. . . . Some became soldiers, others took upon them far 
voyages by sea ; and some others, worse courses tending to 
dissoluteness and the danger of their souls." With such sad 
tacts before them, " they saw that their posterity would be 
in danger to degenerate and be corrupted." 

Other considerations were not without weight in their de- 
liberations. Exiles as they were, they could not forget that 
they were English; and little as they owed to king or par- 
liament, they Avere loyal to their native country. They could 
not bear the thought of losing their nationality. After all, 
it was their desire "to live under the protection of England, 
and that their children after them should retain the language 
and the name of Englishmen." 

Nor was that all. They wanted iiiore for their children 
than the inheritance of their nationality. One incident of 
their poverty, in that foreign land, was "their inability to 
give their children such an education as they had themselves 
received." If they could have a country of their own, even 
though it were in a wilderness three thousand miles away, 
they might have English schools for all their children. 

It was characteristic of the men that the religious value 
of the Christian Sabbath entered into their deliberations. 
They had been Puritans, and, in becoming Separatists, they 
had not surrendered the Puritan doctrine which made the 



258 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII. 

first day of the week a day of holj^ rest, and recognized no 
other day as holy. A Continental Sunday, even among Cal- 
vinists, did not seem to them like God's institution in the 
Decalogue. How did their hearts long for the stillness of 
those rural Sabbaths in old England. "Their grief at the 
profanation of the Sabbath in Holland" made them weary 
of that land, with all the liberty it gave them. As they 
thought how tranquil and how full of heaven that day might 
be to them in a country all their own, the thought was like 
a vision of the rest that remaineth to the people of God. 

But most inspiring of all the reasons for so bold an enter- 
prise was the one which blended with every other, lifting 
their consultations up to a higher plane; and it would be un- 
just not to describe it in their words. It was " a great hope 
and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation 
(or at least to make some way thereunto) for propagating 
and advancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those 
remote parts of the world ; yea, though they should be but 
stepping-stones unto others for the performance of so great 
a work.'" 

After much thought and prayer, when Robinson and Brew- 
ster had taken counsel of such " sagest members " as Carver, 
Bradford, Winslow,Cushman, Allerton, and others, the ques- 
tion was brought before the church : Shall we attempt to 
found an English colony in America? Some caught at once 
the grand idea. Others doubted. There was a full compar- 
ison of opinions, and apparently a long debate. Fears and 
discouragements were set over against the greatness and 
seeming hopefulness of the proposal. We know something 
of what Avas said on one side and the other. 

The more timid were appalled by the greatness of the de- 
sign. It involved inconceivable dangers — the casualties of 
the sea — the hardships of the long voyage, unendurable by 

' Bradford, p. 22-24; Winslow, in Young, p. 358 seq. Bradford's state- 
ment loses something of its effect if translated into nineteenth century En- 
glish. I have ventured to make only very slight abridgment. 



A.D, 1617.] A GREAT ATTEMPT. 259 

their aged and feeble men and women — the liability to fam- 
ine and nakedness, and to the want of all things. The change 
of air, too, and of food, and " the drinking of water" instead 
of their customary beer, " would infect their bodies with sore 
sickness," If any should escape or overcome such dangers, 
they would yet be in continual danger from "savage peo- 
ple, cruel, barbarous, most treacherous, most furious in their 
rage, and merciless where they overcome ;" and many were 
the specifications of horrible torments to be inflicted by 
those savages on such as might fall into their hands. 

Objections of another sort were to be considered by jjru- 
dent men. The cost of the voyage merely Avould be too 
great for their almost exhausted resources. And what was 
the cost of the voyage, and of personal outfit, compared with 
the aggregate expenditure necessary to the founding of a 
colony in so distant a wilderness? Other attempts, with 
larger means than they could hope to command, had resulted 
in miserable failure. Ought not they to leai'n caution from 
what they had already suflTered, struggling for subsistence 
in a civilized and hospitable country ? Did not their own 
experience warn them against going forth — so ill-furnished as, 
at the best, they must be — into a barbarous wilderness on 
the other side of the ocean ? 

These and other like objections were considered, and the 
answer was, "All great and honorable actions are accompa- 
nied with difiiculties that must be met and conquered with 
corresponding courage. What though the dangers be great, 
they are not desperate. What though the difiiculties be 
many, they are not invincible. Some of the things so great- 
ly feared may never befall us; others, by foresight, care, and 
good use of means, may in a great measure be prevented ; and 
all of them, by fortitude, patience, and God's help, can be 
borne or overcome. Such attempts, it is true, are not to be 
made without good ground and reason ; but have we not 
good ground and honorable reasons ? Have we not, in the 
providence of God, a lawful and urgent call to the proposed 



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A (iiti'iM' V I'liairi'. 



[ho ^<(ui'(lv snisr ol'lhr mn'nii'itv |>n'\ ailt'il ji'VcinNt llicsr po 
(>l i(' visions. I'xnn and ImimI hi Mii" I;iihI, llicy Cdiilil iml 
ciiilmi" (lir licMl aiiil tlisciisrs ol m I i'(>|iii';il cliiiKilr. "Tlir 
j«'!ilous S|>;mi;ir(l il' llicv slioiiM li\r iIumc mikI do well— 
would never Kuircc I linn Inii", luil wtiuM displanl or over- 
lliiuw llirni (as he did ihr I'Vciirli \\\ {'"lorida, wlio wd'o seal 
«>d l'ailln'r iVoni his liclicsl ('(Mini lies) ; and llic sdoiicr, lu' 
(•!ins(> tlu-y slioiild lia\r iioiu' lo |)rot(>('l lln'iii,aiid llicii' own 
slrcinMli would l>r loo small to resist so imlciil an rncinv." 
On llio olIiiM' liand, \' iioiiiia was |ti'o|tos('d. 1 1 was a re 
ijion of wliii'Ii lIu'Y lunl lilllo lvin»\vI('d<;'o ; Inil il was williin 
(lu> J\orl lii-rn lrni|icral(> /.one, il was clalnicil liy llio Kiln;,' of 
MnyUmd, and iIumt "I lie Mni'lisli liad alii-ady nnnlo cnlianco 
and l)o<;inniii>;." Tlic Iviii", Innl croMlcd, nion* than Ion yoais 
!»<;'<>, two !;roa|. coloni/iii';' i'or|Mnal ions, di\idin<'' lo llicni a 
tinnisand mil(>s of sou roasi, dial, l»y llicir ronidalcd coniiir 
lilion. Ilu> oniply olaiin oi'doininion iniy,lil hv convcrlcd inio 
a suhstanlial l''.nv,lisli ompirc in Annn-ica. One ol'liioso I wo 
O(n|>oial ions, or \'iiL!,inia i'on)|)Mni("s, was oslaMislicd in I, on 
lion, (lie oilier al l*lynn>ntli. I'ndor llio pat rt>nauc ol' tlial 
Lord ('liicl' .Instici' Topliain who scntonccd iV-niv' to the 
uallows, llioro had lu'cn an ahoi'livo allonipt, in Ixhall'ol' 
tlu> I'lynnmth Conncil, to ostahlish a <'olony ncai' the inoiilh 
<>l'tlio Sa!;ath'hoi'K, in what was ihon known as Noiili \'ii' 
U'inia. A inoi-o cosily a(lrnipt,l>y the London ( 'oiincil, lo 
plant a colony on the .lames IJivci-, in Sonlh N'ii'uinia, had 
l)een coiniiincil tliroin>Ji lli(> strnu'<iles and disasters ol" ten 
ye.ars ; but had hardly ceased to bi> donbtTul. So nineh oC 
"entrance and be^inninn'" had baiiiland made in that i;re)it. 
lield oi' colon i /.at ion. N'iruinia, ihererore, measured oil" on I he 
map tVoin Cape b'car to I'.assannupioddy U.iy, was Mnolish ; 
and the Spanish powHT w.as I'ar away. loit, on the other 
hand, the ('liiireh ol" h'.n^l.iiid llu> National ('liiirch, ideiiti 
iii>d with the slati — was llici'c; and tluM'c, as in lMii;land, sep 
aration from llu> Naticnial ('hnrcli, and conl'(Hinity to the 
New '['("slament in the woiship oftiod, would be under the 



262 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XIII. 

ban of the law. Might not tlie Pilgrims find even less of 
safety and religious freedom there than in England itself? 

Their inquiries terminated in this conclusion : They would 
apply to the Virginia Company of London for a grant of 
territory on which they could settle as a distinct community 
" under the general government of Virginia ;" and, by the 
mediation of their friends, they would " sue to his majesty 
that he would be pleased to grant them freedom of relig- 
ion." Friends they had, "of good rank and quality," who 
had encouraged them to hope for success, and whose influ- 
ence in their behalf they thought would be efl"ectual, not only 
with the company, but with the king. Especially do they 
seem to have relied on the friendship of that " religious 
gentleman," Sir Edwin Sandys,' who, since the time when 
Brewster Avas j^laced as postmaster for Queen Elizabeth in 
the manor-house of Scrooby, had become conspicuous in Par- 
liament and elsewhere. We may assume that there had al- 
ready been some communication, direct or indirect, from him 
to them. 

Accordingly, two of the Pilgrims, John Carver and Robert 
Cushman, were sent to negotiate with the council of the Vir- 
ginia Company at London, and to i)resent the petition of the 
exiles to the king (Sept., 16 1*7). They found the Company 
ready enough to grant all that the Church asked for, Li that 
quarter, Sir Edwin Sandys had influence; and it was easy 
for hira, as a member of the London Council, to convince his 
colleagues that the exiles at Leyden, notwithstanding their 
antipathy to national churches, were the right men for that 
work of colonization. But the apj^lication to the king "for 
liberty in religion" Avas unsuccessful. Their friends in the 
Virginia Company had been confident that so simple a re- 
quest would be granted, and that the grant would be " con- 
firmed under the king's broad seal." In that confidence, 
they undertook to have the petition laid before his majesty. 

' Ante, p. 204. 



A.D, 1617.] A GREAT ATTEMPT. 263 

Some men, who were tliought to have influence, " labored 
with the king to obtain it," while others " wrought with the 
archbishop to give way thereunto ; but it proved all in vain." 
Neither the archbishop nor the king could be made to see 
that men who denied the theory of national churches, and 
whom they called, in contumely, Brownists and Barrowists, 
might be tolerated, even under the condition of their trans- 
porting themselves into the transatlantic wilderness. 

The commissioners, Carver and Cushman, returned to Ley- 
den (in November), having concluded nothing, but bringing 
with them a friendly letter from Sir Edwin Sandys, who 
commended the discretion with which they had conducted 
the business committed to them, promised that he and his 
associates in the Virginia Council would forward the pro- 
posed migration " in the best sort which Avitli reason may 
be expected," and religiously expressed his confidence that 
" the design is verily the work of God." A second embassy 
(Carver and "a gentleman of our company") was sent after 
a few days (Dec. 15 = 25), bearing a letter from Robinson and 
Brewster to their " right worshipful " friend. Sir Edwin. In 
that letter, the pastor and ruling elder, speaking for the 
Church to encourage their " godly and loving " patron's en- 
deavors for them " in this weighty business about Virginia," 
gave him, as they said, "these instances of inducement." 
Their own words are the best illustration of the story : 

" 1. We verily believe and trust the Lord is with us, to 
whom and whose service we have given ourselves in many 
trials ; and that he will graciously prosper our endeavors ac- 
cording to the simplicity of our hearts therein. 

"2. We are well weaned from the delicate milk of our 
mother country, and are inured to the difliculties of a strange 
and hard land, which yet, in a great part, we have by pa- 
tience overcome. 

"3. The people are, for the body of them, industrious and 
frugal, we think we may safely say, as any company of peo- 
ple in the world. 



264 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, XIII. 

" 4. Wc are knit together as a body in a most strict and 
sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation where- 
of we make great conscience, and by virtue w^iereof we do 
hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, 
and of the whole by every one, and so mutually. 

" 5. Lastly, it is not with us as with other men whom small 
things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to 
wish themselves at home again. We know our entertain- 
ment in England and in Holland; we shall much prejudice 
both our arts and means by removal; [and] if we should be 
di'iven to return, we should not hope to recover our present 
helps and comforts, neither indeed look ever, for ourselves, to 
attain unto tlie like in any other place during our lives, whicli 
are now drawing toward their periods." 

While the letter makes no allusion to any former acquaint- 
ance which the writers, or either of them, may have had 
with Sir Edwin, it expresses, nevertheless, a most affection- 
ate confidence in his Christian sympathy with them in their 
undertaking. Referring gratefully to wliat he had done for 
them, they told him, "Under God, above all persons and 
things in the Avorld, we rely upon you, expecting the care 
of your love, counsel of your wisdom, and the help and coun- 
tenance of your authority." The foregoing " instances of in- 
ducement" were set down, not so much for the sake of in- 
creasing his confidence in their fitness for the work in ques- 
tion, as for the sake of suggesting to him what he in his wis- 
dom might impart to other " worshipful friends " in the 
council. 

It must be remembered that the agents of the churcli, 
though kindly received by the council of the Virginia Com- 
pany, found their way blocked up in the Privy Council. 
When Carver went to England for the first time, having 
Cushman for his colleague, it was well understood that cer- 
tain prejudices against them as "Brownists" must be over- 
come. For that reason, a statement in "seven articles," in- 
tended as a disavowal of certain opinions currently imputed 



A.D. 1617.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 265 

to the exiles, and as a profession of loyalty and of Protest- 
ant orthodoxy, was jjrepared and subscribed by the elders in 
behalf of the churcli; and it was hoped that, with so authen- 
tic a document in their hands, the agents would be able to 
make friends both in the council of the Virginia Company 
and among the advisers of the king. That document is so 
important to the business then in hand, and exhibits so clear- 
ly the character and spirit of the Pilgrims, that a full state- 
ment of its substance and meaning seems essential to our 
story. ' 

In the first of the "seven articles," the church professed 
their concurrence with the Reformed Churches of Holland 
in assenting " to the confession of faith published in the 
name of the Church of England." In the second they ac- 
knowledged, not that the parishes in England were churches 
of Christ, but that "the doctrine of faith," in the confession 
before mentioned, was effectual in England " to the beget- 
ting of saving faith in thousands" who adhered to the Na- 
tional Church, "conformists and reformists;" and there was 
added a guarded expression of their " desire to keep spirit- 
ual communion," not only with their "own brethren," but 
also with such non-separating believers " in all lawful things." 
The third article was an acknowledgment of the king as 
"supreme governor in his dominion" — whether England, 
Scotland, Ireland, or Virginia — " in all causes and over all 
persons ;" a denial of any right to " appeal from his author- 
ity and judgment in any cause whatever;" and a profession 
" tliat in all things obedience is due to him, either active — 
if the thing commanded be not against God's word — or pas- 

'■ This document is mentioned by Sir Edwin Sandys in his letter to Robin- 
son and Brewster (Ante, p. 263), but was not known to be in existence till 
it was discovered, a few years ago, in the State Paper Office of the British 
government by Mi". Bancroft. A copy of it was communicated by him to 
the New York Historical Society, and was published in the Collections of 
that society, 2d series, vol. iii., p. 295-302. It may be found entire in Mr. 
Punchard's History, iii., 454. 



266 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES, [CH. XIII. 

sive — if it be — except pai'don can be obtained." In other 
words, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the supi-emacy of the 
pope over the civil power was unequivocally repudiated, and 
with it all the John-of-Munster or so-called "Anabaptist" 
doctrines often imputed to the Separatists; while, on the 
other hand, the right of private judgment, the sacredncss of 
individual conscience, and the majesty of God's law, were re- 
served and guarded against the decrees of Nero or of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, by the intimation that only a "passive obedi- 
ence," the unresisting endurance of penalties, is due to the 
king's authority in conflict witli the Word of God. The fourth 
article admits that it is "lawful for iiis majesty" — the su- 
preme power in the state — " to appoint bishops, civil over- 
seers, or officers in authority under him, ... to oversee the 
churches and govern them civilly according to tlie laws of 
the land ;" and that to such officers for civil or secular gov- 
ernment the churches "are in all things to give an account." 
The fifth acknowledges " the authority of the i)resent bish- 
ops" in England, " so far forth as the same is indeed derived 
from his majesty unto them, and as they proceed in his 
name." The sixth, disavowing the doctrine of Cartwright 
and of Puritanism in Scotland, affirms " that no synod, classis, 
convocation, or assembly of ecclesiastical officers hath any 
power or authority at all, but as the same is by the magis- 
trate given unto them." The seventh can not be abridged, 
and need not be explained. " Lastly, we desire to give unto 
all superiors due honor; to preserve the unity of the spirit 
with all that fear God ; to have peace with all men, what in 
us lieth ; and, wherein we err, to be instructed by any." 

Such was the document of which Sir Edwin Sandys testi- 
fied that, to "divers select gentlemen of his majesty's coun- 
cil for Virginia," it was so far satisfactory that, " for the pub- 
lic good," they were resolved to aid the undertaking. But 
his majesty's Privy Council was not like " his majesty's coun- 
cil for Virginia." How to have a thriving colony, and what 
men could be had tliat were likely to begin another England 



A.D. 1617.] A GREAT ATTEMPT. 267 

in America? were the sort of questions for Sandys and his 
associates of the Virginia Company. In the more august 
deliberations of the Privy Council, the right of the National 
Church to dominion over the conscience and religion of all 
Englishmen, in all jjarts of the world, seemed too evident to 
be doubted, and too sacred to be compromised as it would 
be if Brownists should be permitted, any where under the 
king's protection, to worship God in their own way with im- 
punity. To mitred lords, though they might be Calvinists 
in doctrine, as Archbishop Abbott was, the " seven articles " 
were not satisfactory. Might there not be offered, in behalf 
of the church, some additional explanation which would help 
their friends of the Virginia Company in dealing with mem- 
bers of the Privy Council ? A letter was addressed by Rob- 
inson and Brewster (1618, Jan. 27=Feb. 6) to Sir John Wol- 
stenholme, a principal member of the Virginia Company, who 
had used " singular care and pains " in behalf of the applica- 
tion from Leyden. He may have been one of those who 
" labored with the king," possibly one of those who " wrought 
with the archbishop." To him, therefore, the two elders, 
officially representing the church, sent the additional expla- 
nation. "Some of his majesty's honorable Privy Council" 
had specified three points on which the seven articles were 
not sufficiently clear — " the ecclesiastical ministry," the sac- 
raments, and the oath of supremacy. Concerning these 
points the Leyden petitioners had not thoroughly purged 
themselves of opinions and practices too dangerous to be 
tolerated even three thousand miles -away. "Though it be 
grievous to us," said the elders, "that such unjust insinua- 
tions are made against us, yet we a^e most glad of the occa- 
sion of making our purgation unto so honorable personages." 
They inclosed their " further explanation " in two forms — 
"the one more brief and general," which in their judgment 
was " the fitter to be presented ;" " the other something more 
large," and expressing " some small accidental differences " 
between tlicir own churches and those of the French Prot- 

S 



268 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CIIUKCHES. [CH. XIII. 

estants. Sir John, " and other of the worshipful friends " 
who had the matter in their charge, might send either form 
of the explanation, as to them might seem good ; and from 
him they hoped to receive " knowledge of the success of the 
business with his majesty's Privj^ Council." From the mes- 
senger who delivered the letter to Sir John, and who waited 
while he read both the letter and the explanation, we have 
an almost dramatic rehearsal of the interview. Writing to 
Robinson and Brewster (Feb. 14), he reports: 

" There were two papers inclosed : he read them to him- 
self, as also the letter, and in the reading he spake to me 
and said, 'Who shall make them?'" — videlicet, the ministers. 

" I answered his worship that the power of making Avas 
in the church, [and that the ministers were] to be ordained 
by the imposition of hands by the fittest instruments they 
had. It [the power of making and ordaining ministers] must 
be in the church or from the pope, and the pope is Anti- 
christ. 

"'Ho!' said Sir John, 'what the pope holds [that is true 
and] good — as in the Trinity, that we do well to assent to. 
But,' said he, ' we will not enter into dispute now.' 

"As for your letters, he would not show them at any 
hand, lest he sliould spoil all. He expected you should have 
been of the archbishop's mind for the calling of ministers ; 
but it seems you differed." 

Sir John ^\'olstenholme was shrewd enough to see that 
the more his Leyden friends explained themselves " touching 
the ecclesiastical ministry" and "the two sacraments," the 
more manifest would the difference be between their judg- 
ment and " the archbishop's mind." Their view of Chris- 
tianity excluded the theory of a sacerdotal order ruling the 
universal church of God, dispensing God's grace by manipu- 
lation of the sacraments, and perpetuating itself by the mys- 
terious efficacy of ordination. No priesthood would they 
acknowledge save the Pligh- priesthood of Christ, and the 
universal priesthood of his followers, all brethren, and all 



A.D. 1618.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 269 

kings and priests unto God. On the other hand, sacerdotal- 
ism and sacramentalisra were essential to Christianity ac- 
cording to Bancroft. First, a priesthood, mediating between 
God and the souls of men, and lording it over God's heri- 
tage — then sacraments, operating not by their significance 
to the intelligent mind and devont sensibilities of the believ- 
er, but by their validity in priestly hands — were the Jachin 
and Boaz of that national temple wherein King James was 
the Solomon, and "my Lord's Grace of Canterbury" the high- 
priest. The elders of the Leyden Church knew what the ex- 
planation was which their opponents in the Privy Council 
expected on those two points — "the ecclesiastical ministry" 
and " the sacraments ;" and, therefore, instead of rushing 
into a dispute which might be fatal to their cause, they sim- 
ply professed their agreement on both points with the French 
Reformed churches. Sir John, on the other hand, finding 
that they would not profess to be " of the archbishop's 
mind" on either point, promptly decided that neither form 
of their "further explanation" should be submitted to the 
Privy Council. He thought he had already gained at least 
as much as was likely to be gained by more protracted nego- 
tiation. " The king's majesty and the bishops," he said, had 
"consented." But Avhat they had consented to, he did not 
venture to tell. He would go to the chancellor that day; 
and "next week" the messenger who had brought him that 
letter from Leyden "should know more." Probably he was 
then hoping for what, as afterward appeared, could not be 
obtained. All negotiations with the Privy Council to obtain 
for the Pilgrims a valid permission to organize their own re- 
ligious institutions, and to worship God according to their 
own convictions, in a colony by themselves under the gen- 
eral government of the Virginia Company, were baffled by 
the obstinacy of the archbishop and the folly of the king. 
What " the king's majesty and the bishops " consented to 
was a vague promise, in words which were only breath, that 
James Stuart, whose reputation for fidelity to such engage- 



270 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII. 

ments was not good, " would connive at them, and not mo- 
lest them, provided they carried themselves peaceably." This 
was all that could be gained for them. Yet the chief men 
of the Virginia Company, and other friends of theirs in En- 
gland, advised them to proceed with their plan of removal, 
"presuming" that they would not be troubled. 

Four months, at least, had passed in these negotiations; 
and nothing had been concluded. When Carver and his as- 
sociate returned from that second mission in England, tlieir 
report " made a damp in the business." Some of the church 
could not see that it was right to proceed under such condi- 
tions. Ought they to detach themselves from their homes 
and occupations, to dispose of their property, and to remove 
into the wilderness beyond the ocean, all uncertain wheth- 
er they would not there, as in England, be "vexed with ap- 
paritors and pursuivants and commissary courts" enforcing 
the Act of Uniformity, and equally uncertain whether they 
would not find themselves again under the High Commission 
for causes ecclesiastical ? Better would it have been to go 
without making any request to the king, than to go now, 
having had their petition considered in the Privy Council 
and rejected. But, on the other hand, it was said that the 
king, as their best friends in England had advised them, " was 
willing enough to suffer them without molestation, though 
for other reasons " — for the sake of consistency, and for the 
sake of pleasing the bishops — " he would not confirm " that 
verbal and indefinite promise "by any public act." That 
promise, or less than promise, of mere connivance they at 
last concluded to accept, " resting on God's providence as 
they had done in other things ;" and wisely comforting them- 
selves with the argument that, " if there were no security in 
the promise intimated, there would be no great certainty in 
a further confirmation of the same." It was evident that, 
had their petition been granted, " if afterward there should 
be a purpose or desire to wrong them, though they had a 
seal as broad as the house floor, it would not serve the turn. 



A.D. 1618.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 271 

for there would be means enough found to recall or reverse 
it." 

Having arrived at this conclusion, they were ready to fin- 
ish their negotiation with the Virginia Company ; and Brew- 
ster and Cushman were sent to London as agents for the 
church in that transaction. They were " to procure a patent 
with as good and ample conditions as they might by any 
good means obtain." At the same time they were empow- 
ered " to treat and conclude with " certain " merchants and 
other friends" who had intimated their willingness to ad- 
venture capital in the undertaking. But their commission, 
especially in regard to a contract with the capitalists, was 
carefully limited. If the conditions on which the Pilgrims 
insisted were not consented to on the other side, they were 
to conclude nothing without new instructions. 

We have some remarkable evidences of how quietly and 
cautiously those agents went about their business. Their go- 
ing from Leyden seems to have been as secret as if they had 
been criminals escaping from justice. They had not been 
long absent when Sir Dudley Carleton, the English embassa- 
dor, is found taking measures to have Brewster, as printer, 
and Brewer, as proprietor of the press, arrested for the of- 
fense of printing certain books of a sort which had been pro- 
hibited in Scotland by royal authority. King James had 
been at work for some time, in his arbitrary and blundering 
way, to subvert the Presbyterian government of the National 
Church in his native kingdom, and to establish there the ec- 
clesiastical system which he admired in England, and which 
he had found so subservient to his vanity and to his passion 
for governing by a divine right superior to all human laws. 
In the prosecution of that design, he had suppressed the 
printing of Presbyterian books in Scotland. Consequently, 
books of that sort, written in Scotland, were printed in the 
free Netherlands. Two were supposed to have been printed 
by Brewster. At that crisis, the Dutch republic could ill 
nifoi'd to quarrel with the King of England and Scotland on 



272 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CU. XIII. 

a point of iuternational law, and it was prudent for the au- 
thorities to make some show, at least, of compliance with 
his wishes intimated through his embassador. On the 9tli 
(=19th) of July, an agent of Sir Dudley reported from Am- 
sterdam that, after diligent inquiry there concerning Brew- 
ster among those who knew him well, there was no evidence 
that he was not still "dwelling and resident at Leyden ;" 
furthermore, that there was no probability of his removing 
to Amsterdam, inasmuch as another Brownist printer was 
already settled in that city ; and the discouraging hint 
was added, "If he lurk here for fear of apprehension, it will 
be hard to find him." Three days later (July 12 = 22) the 
embassador wrote that "within three weeks" Brewster had 
removed from Leyden, and gone back to live in London, 
where he might be "found out and examined." On the lOtli 
(=20th) of August, he had made good inquiry at Leyden, 
and was well assured that the subject of the inquiry had 
not returned to that place, but had removed his family and 
goods. Three weeks later (Sept. 2 = 12), he had, in a pre- 
vious dispatch, announced "that Brewster was taken at Ley- 
den," and was then under the disagreeable necessity of con- 
tradicting that report, because the officer making the arrest 
had " taken one man for another." At the end of another 
week (Sept. 9 = 19), the municipal authorities of Leyden be- 
lieved that Brewster was " in town at present, but sick." 
In four days more (Sept. 13 = 23), having made an attempt 
(feigned or earnest) to arrest him, they found that he "had 
already left" the city.^ 

All that while the undiscoverable printer had been just 
where we might suppose the English government would 
most easily find him ; and letters had been occasionally ex- 
changed between him and his friends at Leyden. Just about 
four months before the dispatch in which Sir Dudley mis- 
takenly announced to his majesty's secretary of state " that 

' Waddington, "Hidden Cliureh," p. 210-227. 



A.D. 1G19.] A GREAT ATTEMPT. 273 

Brewster was taken at Ley den " (May 8 = 18), the two agents 
for the Pilgrims had been in London long enough to have 
completed their business had they not been hindered by 
troubles arising in the Virginia Company. At that time, 
"Mr. Brewster" was "not well;" but whether he would go 
back to Leyden, " or go into the north," his colleague in the 
mission did not know. Such were the factions and conten- 
tions in the council and among the members of the Virginia 
Company that no business could be transacted with them. 
Ill tidings, too, from the unfortunate colony in Virginia dark- 
ened the prospect. Cushman was going " down into Kent," 
and would "come up again" in two or three weeks, expect- 
ing tliat then the business on which he had been sent would 
be^soon finished— unless, in consideration of all these dis- 
couragements, it should be abandoned. 

How long they were thus hindered does not appear. At 
last, after "their long attendance," the Company having been 
brought again into working order, the desired patent was 
granted and " confirmed under the Company's seal." But 
the delay, and the "divisions and distractions" that caused 
it, had estranged some who might otherwise have continued 
to befriend them, and on whose offers of capital for the en- 
terprise they had relied. Yet one member of the Company 
lent them three hundred pounds without interest for three 
years— a loan which, notwithstanding their poverty, was 
honestly repaid.' 

' Winslow, in Young, p. 383. Bradford says : "By the advice of some 
friends, this patent was not taken in the nanfe of any of their own, but in 
the name of Mr. John Wincob (a religious gentleman then belongmg to the 
Countess of Lincoln), who intended to go with them. But God so disposed 
as he never went, nor they ever made use of this patent, which had cost them 
so much labor and charge." 

Perhaps the odium attached to the names of the Leyden Pilgrims, as de- 
clared and exiled Separatists, was the reason of the advice that only the 
name of "a religious gentleman then belonging to the Countess of Lmcoln" 
should appear in the patent. This is the first but not the last mention of 
ihat noble family in the story of New England. 



274 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII, 

It must Lave been, at the earliest, late in the autumn (more 
than two years after the first attempt at negotiation) when 
Cushman, leaving Brewster in England, returned to Leyden 
with the long-desired patent. He reported, also, to the 
church the progress which he and his associate in the agency 
liad been able to make in matters which were really moi-e 
important. Brethren had been found in England who were 
proposing to go with the Pilgrims. Friends had been found 
who would make a venture of capital, where they were ex- 
pecting to adventure, not only all their worldly estate, but 
their lives also — and lives dearer to them than their own. 
Certain merchants, "on whom they did chiefly depend for 
shipping and means," had made "large proffers" — especially 
"one Mr. Thomas Weston" — and the church was invited to 
make ready with all speed for its intended migration. 

The question had become more definite than on any former 
occasion. Shall we accept these " large proflers," and enter 
into the partnership to which those London merchants and 
other friends invite us? Before deciding the question, "they 
had a solemn meeting and a day of liumiliation to seek the 
Lord for his direction." Their pastor's discourse to them, on 
that fast-day, was from the text, "And David's men said 
unto him. See, we be afraid here in Judah : how much more 
if we come to Keilah against the host of the Philistines? 

It is not strange that no copy of that patent has been found. As the 
Pilgrims were unable to make it useful, they saw no reason for preserving 
the worthless parchment. Its only value to them was that it made them 
(had they been able to use it) the legal proprietors — against all Englisli 
claimants — of a definite though unknown territory, in which they might be- 
come a distinct community under the general government of the Virginia 
Company in London, and under such protection as that corporation might 
be able to give them. 

The territory granted to them by the company is believed to have been 
near the mouth of the Hudson, where tlie Dutch had already made a begin- 
ning. Had they prospered according to their hopes, "Plymouth Kock' 
might have been, perhaps, somewhere in what is now the State of New 
Jersey. 



A. D. 1619.] A GREAT ATTEMPT, 275 

Then David asked counsel of the Lord again. And the Lord 
answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I 
will deliver the Philistines into thine hand."^ It was long- 
remembered by the hearers that, from that text, "he tauglit 
many things very aptly, and befitting their present occasion 
and condition, strengthening them against their fears and 
perplexities, and encouraging them in their resolutions." 

After that religious jjreparation, the question was, Who 
shall go first ? The entire body of the church could not go 
at once ; for so large an expedition was beyond their means, 
and was every way inexpedient. Some were too old, or 
otherwise too feeble, for the hardshijjs which the pioneers of 
a new colony must encounter. Others could not immedi- 
ately withdraw themselves from their afiairs in Leyden. 
From among those w^ho were willing to go first, and could 
speedily complete their preparation for going, a competent 
number (as they judged) were selected for the first expe- 
dition. The majority were to remain behind for a time, and 
it was tlieir desire that the pastor should remain with them, 
— which was the more readily agreed to, because for some 
other reason it was inconvenient for him to remove just then. 
On the other hand, the pioneers obtained the privilege of 
being accompanied by the pastor's colleague in the over- 
sight of the flock, Brewster, who was still in England. 

The question was considered w^hether, w'hen divided, at 
least for a time, by the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean, they 
were to be two churches or only one. Should those who 
were going out be dismissed, and so become a new church, 

' 1 Sam. xxiii. , 3, 4. Bradford's quotations from the Bible are in the 
words of the Geneva translation. The translation now in use (made by 
order of King James) was a novelty to the exiles at Leyden ; and the author- 
ity by which it was made ("his majesty's special command"), and "ap- 
pointed to be read in churches," did not very much commend it to their 
prejudices. The introduction of King James's version into the churches and 
families of the Separatists was effected gradually, as the former translations 
ceased to be reprin^d. 



276 GENESIS OF THE KEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII. 

to which those who were to follow might come with letters 
of commendatiou and dismissal, till the Leyden church, in 
which their fellowship liad been so pleasant and so profitable, 
should be extinct? Under the guidance of Robinson, they 
disposed of that question, and of all future questions about 
the identity of the church that was to exist in the colony 
with the church of their exile at Leyden and of their earlier 
afflictions at Scrooby. Their mutual understanding was 
that, while the migration should be in progress, neither por- 
tion of the church should be subordinate to the other; that 
the majority, on whichever side of the ocean, should not gov- 
ern the minority on the other side; that each portion, whether 
majority or minority, should be the church to the members 
present with it, and should perform toward them — and they 
toward each other — all the duties of their sacred fraternity ; 
and that members migrating to the colony, or returning 
thence, should be received without dismissal or testimonial, 
till the entire church should have passed over into its land 
of promise. Thus Brewster, going over in the first expe- 
dition, would be ruling elder in the colony, and Robinson — 
whenever he might follow — would be pastor, without any 
nevv^ ordination or election. 

Not long before these preparations were begun, the Pil- 
grims were favored with a visit from "one Mr. Thomas Wes- 
ton," a London merchant with whom some of them had been 
acquainted, and who had given them some aid in their former 
proceedings. He came with a plausible appearance of friend- 
ship and of godliness — greatly interested in their heroic en- 
terprise, and seemingly ready to make large sacrifices for it. 
He gained their confidence, and was especially trusted by 
Robinson. At his persuasion, they declined the invitation 
which they had received from a trading company at Amster- 
dam to settle under Dutch protection and patronage in the 
New Xetherlands. Pie advised them not to depend too much 
on the Virginia Company for assistance in founding their 
colony, and assured them that should theu- hopes in that 



A.D, 1619.] A GREAT ATTEMPT. 277 

quarter fail, they need not be discouraged. Let them reso- 
hitely use their own means, and " he and such merchants as 
were his friends would set them forth." He promised that 
what they could not provide from their own resources should 
be provided for them ; therefore " they should make ready, 
and neither fear want of shipping nor of money." At his 
suggestion, a prospectus Avas drawn up, entitled "Articles of 
Agreement," and exhibiting the formal contract which the 
Pilgrims were willing to make with him and " such friends 
as he should procure to adventure in this business." 

Those articles, having been approved by him as sufficient 
for his purpose of inducing his friends to venture capital in 
the enterprise, were deliberately sanctioned by the Pilgrim 
community as a statement of the responsibilities Avhich were 
to be assumed on their part. Carver was sent into England 
to be associated with Cushman in making the jjroposed con- 
tract, in receiving the money which " the Adventurers" were 
to contribute, in purchasing or hiring vessels for the trans- 
portation of the first company, and in making all necessary 
provisions and arrangements for their voyage and their settle- 
ment. At the same time a committee was chosen to super- 
intend the enterprise at Leyden. Those who were to go in 
the first expedition "sold off" their estates;" and whatever 
they had, more than was necessary to their personal outfit or 
that of their families, was put into "the common stock" 
which was to be for the common benefit of the colony. 
Every family had, of course, its own perplexities in deciding 
what of its household stufl' to dispose of and what to retain 
for a new home. Often, when the question, Can we pait 
with this, and do without it in the wild country Ave are go- 
ing to ? had been answered with a resolute No, a more im- 
perative No Avould answer the other question. Can there be 
found room for it in the crowded vessel? Day by day, all 
hands were busy in the various work of preparation. Day 
and night, all their hearts — sometimes aching in sadness, 
sometimes exultant in hope — were full of one great thought, 



278 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. Xlll. 

removal from that familiar city to an unknown wilderness. 
That one thought was the burden of prayer in their holy as- 
semblies, and in every worshiping household ; for they ac- 
knowledged God in all their ways. It is only by calling up 
before our minds such details as these that we can see the 
true and interior meaning of the story. 

Meanwhile an event, supposed to be of much significance, 
was taking place in England. The second, or Plymouth, 
Virginia Company, incorporated to colonize " the north parts 
of Virginia," was obtaining from the king a new charter of 
incorporation, reviving it under another corporate name, and 
giving to the territory over which its authority was to ex- 
tend a name which had been recently proposed by Captain 
John Smith, with the approval of" Charles, Prince of Wales." 
Thenceforth the region which had been called " the North 
Parts of Virginia," extending from the forty-first degree of 
north latitude to the forty-fifth, was to be the domain of " the 
council established at Plymouth in the county of Devon, for 
the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New En- 
gland in America." Wild dreams of infinite gold and silver 
— like the stream of treasure which for a century had been 
enriching and enfeebling Spain — had been, partly at least, 
dispelled ; and English mariners and merchants had begun 
to know that the fisheries on that northern coast, and the 
furs from those northern forests, might become to English 
enterprise a mine of wealth. Thomas Weston and others 
of the Londoners, without whose money nothing could be 
done, had set their minds upon the profits of the fisheries and 
of the fur-trade with the Indians; and, at Leyden also, it be- 
gan to be said by some of the leading men that, inasmuch as 
the empty patent was all they had obtained, or were likely 
to obtain from the Virginia Company, it might be best for 
them, after all, to settle in New England under the patronage 
of the "honorable lords" who were to be incorporated as 
the Plymouth Council. As yet, however, the question wheth- 
er their place of settlement should be north or south of a 



A.D. 1619.] STEUGGLES AND SACEIFICES. 2/9 

certain degree of latitude was of no immediate importance. 
The business on hand was to complete their preparation, 
so that they might make their voyage at the favorable 
season. 

But while the Pilgrims at Leyden were doing their part, 
their agents in England encountered various disheartening 
difficulties. The first disappointment was that some of the 
friends there, who had been expected to go in the first expe- 
dition, contributing themselves and their tamilies to the per- 
sonal strength of the colony, and adding their means to the 
capital of the joint-stock company^ " fell ofi*, and would not 
go." They preferred the chances of persecution in their na- 
tive country to the perils of the ocean and the wilderness. 
The faith and hope which glowed at Leyden had not kindled 
in them the enthusiasm needful to so great an enterjsrise. 

Another disappointment came from " merchants and friends 
that had offered to adventure their money," but, when solicit- 
ed to take stock in the company, " withdrew, and pretend- 
ed many excuses." All know how it is when men, partially 
committed, want to withdraw from an undertaking which 
they fear will not yield the dividends it seemed at the first 
view to promise. Some excused themselves because the col- 
ony was not to be planted in Guiana. Others must have 
security that it should be nowhere else than in Virginia. 
Others, again, had seen and heard enough of disastrous at- 
tempts at colonization under the Virginia Company, and 
would do nothing without a pledge that the colony should 
not be planted any where within the jurisdiction of that un- 
lucky and ill-managed corporation. When these things were 
reported at Leyden, there were serious questionings. To men 
who had disposed of their property with reference to an im- 
mediate removal, the prospect was by no means encouraging. 
It was doubtful " what issue these things would come to." 
Should they forego the advantages which their patent from 
the Virginia Company gave them? It does not appear that 
there was any formal decision ; but some of them, surely, had 



280 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XIII. 

read Captain John Smith's " Description of New England," 
and "at length the generality was swayed to the opinion" 
that "for the hope of present profit to be made by the fish- 
ing in that country," it was best for them to plant their col- 
ony there, and to negotiate afterward for a patent from the 
reincorporated Plymouth Council. 

There was a much greater difficulty. Tlie compact to be 
made between " the Adventurers" and " the Planters" was in 
those Articles of Agreement which had been drawn up at 
Leyden, and to which Weston had given, unequivocally, his 
approval and consent. But after the Pilgrims had committed 
themselves irretrievably, and when they were in the midst 
of their preparation for the voyage, Weston and some others 
of the Adventurers insisted on a change. Their pretense 
was that the articles, as agreed upon at Leyden, were not 
satisfactory to some whose co-operation was important, and 
to whom the proposed change w^ould be a sufficient induce- 
ment. But the sequel of the story seems to prove that Wes- 
ton, at least, was one of those traders who take every pos- 
sible advantage in a bargain. He knew that the Pilgrims 
were in his power; for they must either relinquish in despair 
the undertaking to which they had committed their fortunes 
and their lives, or submit to whatever conditions the Ad- 
venturers might impose upon them. The two agents saw- 
that there was no help, and reluctantly submitted. Cush- 
man,^ always quick to discern the practicable and the inevit- 
able, always prompt to act for himself or for others Avhen 
action was required, took the responsibility. He, therefore, 
rather than Carver, had to bear the brunt of the " many quer- 
i monies and complaints" that came from his brethren at Ley- 
den. It was natural for them to complain that he had been 
" making conditions fitter for thieves and bond-slaves than 
honest men ;" but they, too, in their turn submitted to the 

1 " A good man, and of special abilities in his kind, yet most unfit to deal 
for other men by reason of his singularity and too great indiffcrency for any 
conditions." — Robinson, in Bradford, p. 48. 



A.D. 1620.] STRUGGLES AND SACPaFICES. 281 

inevitable. They felt, as he did, that it was bettei* to proceed 
under "conditions fit for thieves and bond-slaves," than to 
abandon their enterprise after having gone so far. 

The Pilgrims had hoped to make a better bargain with 
their friends in London ; for, after all, the Adventurers gen- 
erally Avere their friends, whatever might be true of Weston 
and some others, whose thoughts were of codfish and beaver, 
and who — under a show of sympathizing zeal — cared more 
for large profits on their investment than for the Gospel and 
the kingdom of Christ. Evidently, the influence which had 
demanded and obtained those new conditions was that of 
"the merchants" in the copartnership of Adventurers — the 
men of business, with whom " business was business," who re- 
garded the whole affair as a commercial venture, and whose 
calculation was that the godliness of these self-sacrificing- 
Pilgrims would yield to the company the promise of this life, 
while the other party would have for their share the promise 
of the life to come. Other members of the company — prob- 
ably a numerical majority — were actuated by higher motives, 
and were more intent on planting a Christian colony than 
on making large profits. That Thomas Brewer who had been 
Brewster's partner in the pvinting-oflice at Leyden — and who, 
" being a man of good estate," was afterward denounced as 
" the general patron of the Kentish Brownists," and imprison- 
ed fourteen years for his eftbrts in that cause' — was one of 
them. Others were like-minded with him. But Weston, by 
his forwardness, and perhaps by his greater acquaintance 
with commercial afiairs, obtained a controlling influence ; and 
the business of the company seems to have been managed 
for a time by his will. Thus it was that the Pilgrims found 
themselves under the necessity of submitting to conditions 
against whicb not only their judgment but their self-respect 
protested, and which they would not formally accept. 

'■ Waddington, " Hidden Church." p. 226. Brewer was one of Laud's pris- 
oners, and was released by an order of the House of Commons, November 
28, 1640. 



282 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIII, 

Briefly stated, the plan Avas this. There were two distinct 
parties, joint proprietors of the intended colony. One party 
was the Adventurers, residing in London and its vicinity, 
who raised the caijital to begin and supply the colony, and 
were to manage the affairs of the partnership considered as 
a commercial adventure. They were " about seventy — some 
gentlemen, some merchants, some handicraftsmen ; some ad- 
venturing great sums, some small, as their estates and affec- 
tions served." They were not a legal corporation, but were 
" knit together by a voluntary combination in a society with- 
out constraint or penalty, aiming to do good and to plant re- 
ligion." ^ The other party was the Planters, members of the 
Leyden church, with a few moi'e, recruited from Essex and 
some other parts of England. According to the Articles of 
Agreement, the partnership between the Adventurers and 
Planters was a joint-stock company, to continue seven years 
unless dissolved earlier by general consent. The number of 
shares was unlimited, at ten pounds each. Every settler in 
the colony, if not less than sixteen years of age, was to be 
considered as having contributed one share ; and, if self-pro- 
vided with an outfit of not less than ten pounds' value, two 
shares. Every child over ten years of age and under sixteen 
was to be rated at half a share. There was to be no divi- 
dend of profits till the end of the seven years ; and, in the 
mean time, every person in the colony was to be supported 
out of the common stock, and to labor under direction, with- 
out wages, for the benefit of the great partnership. At the 
winding up of the concern, all the capital, with the accumu- 
lated profits (including the colony itself, with its lands and 
houses, and not excepting even household goods), was to be 
divided among the stockholders in proportion to their shares.^ 

' Captain John Smith's "General Histoiy of Virginia" (1624), quoted 
in Young, p. 81, 82. 

^ Other articles in the contract were, that " such children as now go, and 
are under the age of ten years, have no other share in the division but only 
fifty acres of unman u red (uncleared) land;" and that "such persons as die 



A.D. 1620.] STRUGGLES AND SACRIFICES. 283 

In Other -words, the Pilgrims — men, women, and little ones — 
were to be bond-servants to the company for seven years; 
in all that time, no man of them was to labor, spend, or save 
for himself or for his wife and children ; and, at the end, he 
was to receive for his seven years of labor and hardship in 
the Avilderness, and of peril by sea and land, jnst the same 
share of the total product with the man who had contributed 
ten pounds, and lived quietly all the while in London. It 
was a hard bargain, but they submitted to the harsh condi- 
tions, because there was no other way in which they could 
pursue their heroic enterprise. 

liefore the seven years be exj)ired, their executors to have their part or share 
at the division, proportionately to the time of their life in the colony." 

In drawing up the Articles of Agreement, the Pilgrims stijinlated that the 
houses and tlie land under cultivation — especially gardens and home lots — 
should be, at the end of the seven years' partnership, the property of the 
planters ; and also that every man — especially such as had families — should 
be at liberty, two days in a week, to work for himself. These were the two 
stipulations which the merchants, against the protest of the Pilgrims, insist- 
ed on striking out of the contract. 

T 



284 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. XIV. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FROM LEYDEN TO SOUTHAMPTON. ROBTNSOn's PASTORAL LET- 
TER. THE PILGRIMS THE REFORMERS OF SEPARATISM. 

Hardly less than three years had passed since the resolu- 
tion was taken at Leyden to attempt the founding of a col- 
ony, and the iirst expedition Avas not yet ready. It ought 
to have been set forth early in the summer, so that there 
should be time after its arrival to make preparation for the 
winter. But so many were the hinderances to be overcome 
by the agents in England, that the longest da} of summer 
(June 11=21, 1620) had come, when Cushman wrote from 
London, "I hope we shall get all here ready in fourteen 
days." He and Weston had resolved to hire a ship, and had 
obtained the refusal of one for a day or two — not so large as 
would be desirable, only about a hundred and eighty tons; 
" for a greater one," said he, " we can not get, except it be 
too great ; but a fine ship it is." It was the Mayflower, 

At the same time a much smaller vessel — the Speedioell,o^ 
sixty tons — was purchased and fitted in Plolland. She was 
to accompany the 3IayJlower as a transport, and was then to 
remain in the service of the colony as a fishing and coasting 
vessel. She was first to be employed in conveying the Ley- 
den part of the expedition to Southampton, in England, the 
port whence they were to sail for America. Once more the 
pioneer Pilgrims were to see the green fields of their native 
land. 

When all other preparations had been completed, the 
church again devoted a day to humiliation and united prayer 
(July 11=21), the crowning preparation. Their pastor "spent 
a good part of the day very profitably and suitably to their 
present occasion," preaching — or, rather, teaching — from an 



A.D. 1620.] FROM LEYDEN TO SOUTHAMPTON. 285 

apposite and evev-remembered text : " And there at the riv- 
er by Ahava, I proclaimed a fast, that we might humble our- 
selves before our God, and seek of him a right way for us, 
and for our children, and for all our substance,"^ Prayers 
were offered "with great fervency, mixed with abundance 
of tears." The fasting was followed by a frugal feast ; " they 
that stayed at Leyden," says one who was there, " feasted 
us that were to go at our pastor's house (being large), where 
we refreshed ourselves, after our tears, with singing of psalms, 
making joyful melody in our hearts as well as with the voice 
(there being many of the congregation ver}^ expert in music), 
and indeed it was the sweetest melody that ever mine ears 
iieard." It was fit that the evening hours, after that day of 
prayer and tears, be cheered with sacred song. 

The day had come when they must depart. But those 
who were to embark were accompanied by most of their 
brethren, about fourteen miles, to Delft- Haven, where the 
i^pee.dioell lay ready to receive them. " So," floating in Dutch 
canal-boats, " they left the goodly and pleasant city which 
had been their resting-place near twelve years." As the 
huge pile of the Peter' s-church lessened in the distance and 
sank below the horizon, they could not but feel how dear 
Leyden was to them; "but they knew they were jjilgrims, 
and looked not much on these things." Other friends, who 
could not accompany them, followed at a later hour, and 
even from Amsterdam some came to see their embarkation 
and to say farewell. " That night was spent with little sleep 
by the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian 
discourse, and other real expressions of Christian love," for 
" there," says Winslow, " they feasted us again," Those men 
were neither sour nor grim ; they could fast or feast as oc- 
casion might require ; and on that occasion the joy of hope, 
and of a grand endeavor auspiciously begun, was mingled 
with the tender sadness of their parting. 

• ' Ezra viii., 21 — Geneva Version. 



286 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [ciI. XIV, 

"The next day, the wind being fair, they went aboard," 
after prayer had been oiFered by the revered pastor, who 
was hoping soon to be with them again on the other side of 
the ocean. "Then," says Winslow, "they accompanied us 
to the sliip, but were not able to speak one to another for 
the abundance of sorrow to part." A few moments, while 
" the tide which waits for no man was calling them away," 
the voyagers on board and their friends on the quay linger- 
ed in silence. Heads are reverently uncovered ; all kneel 
for worship ; and once more Robinson, with tremulous voice, 
commends the departing Pilgrims to Him who rules the 
winds and the sea. The little vessel swings from the quay 
into the broad channel, spreads her sails to the " prosperous 
wind," and gives her parting salute. " We gave them," says 
Winslow, " a volley of small shot, and three pieces of ord- 
nance; and so, lifting up our hands to each other, and our 
hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed, and 
found his presence with us." 

Something of what was going on that day had been told 
among the people of Delft-Haven ; and the sailing of the 
Speechoell, with religious exiles from England to begin a 
colony in America, drew some Dutch strangers to the river- 
side, whose tears attested their sympathy. Years afterward 
— yet long before the importance of the event in relation 
to the world's liistory was known or suspected in Europe 
— the embarkation of the Pilgrims was freshly remembered 
there. 

With that i\\voring wind, a few hours' sailing brought 
them to Southampton, where the Mayflower was lying, and 
where the rest of their company were ready. There was a 
joyful welcome, with mutual congratulations and friendly en- 
tertainment, and then the question was how^ to get off' most 
expeditiously on their long voyage. But that question in- 
volved a parley with their agents about the change in the 
Articles of Agreement. Carver referred them to Cushman, 
whose defense was " necessity :" if he had stood out against 



A.D. 1620.] AT SOUTHAMPTON. 287 

Weston and the others, who insisted on the change, " all had 
been dashed, and many undone." A protracted altercation 
between the Planters and the Adventurers would hinder the 
business ; and already they had been too long delayed, as 
" he feared they would find to their cost." But, though it 
was admitted that Cushman had intended to do what he 
thought was best to be done, "these things gave not content 
at present." Weston came from London to expedite their 
sailing, " and to have the conditions confirmed." But they 
would ratify no alteration of the original agreement, and 
Weston went home in displeasure, refusing to disburse a pen- 
ny for them, though they needed nearly a hundred pounds 
"to clear things at their going away." They were not to be 
overcome by any such proceeding on the part of Mr. Thom- 
as Weston. Instead of succumbing at his intimation that, 
till they should consent to the new conditions, "they must 
look to stand on their own legs," they immediately " stopped 
the gap " by selling off sixty or eighty firkins of butter 
which had been provided for them by their agents, but 
which seemed, in that strait, not quite indispensable. Hav- 
ing made this attempt to " stand on their own legs," they 
addressed a resolute but courteous letter (Aug. 3 = 13) to "the 
merchants and adventurers," insisting that Cushman had no 
power from them to modify the articles deliberately agreed 
upon between them and Weston (whose share in the capi- 
tal was greater, they said, than that of any other Adventur- 
er), persistently refusing to ratify those new conditions, yet 
proposing a substitute which they hoped would be accept- 
able, because they had been assured that not more than one 
fourth of the stock had been subscribed by the men for 
whose sake the obnoxious clauses had been interpolated into 
the contract. In the close of that letter they said : " We 
are in such a strait at present, as we are forced to sell away 
sixty pounds' worth of our provisions to clear the haven, 
and withal put ourselves upon great extremities — scarce 
having any butter, no oil, not a sole to mend a shoe, nor ev- 



288 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.XIV. 

ery man a sword to his side — wanting many muskets, mucli 
armor, etc. And yet we are willing to expose ourselves to 
such eminent dangers as are like to ensue, and trust to the 
good providence of God, rather than his name and truth be 
evil spoken of for us. Thus saluting all of you in love, and 
beseeching the Lord to give a blessing to our endeavor, and 
keep all our hearts in the bonds of peace and love, we take 
leave." 

Embarrassed as they were by Weston's angry refusal to 
help them "clear things at their going away," so that God's 
name and truth should not be evil spoken of on their ac- 
count, they succeeded in clearing things ; and, in little more 
than a week after their arrival, all accounts were settled, the 
freight and the passengers were properly divided between 
the two vessels, and all were ready. A governor and two or 
three assistants were chosen for each ship, with power to or- 
der the people on the voyage, to superintend the distribu- 
tion of their provisions, and in general to take care of the 
little commonwealth — the masters of the vessels consenting 
to these arrangements, and giving to them the sanction of 
their own authority over their passengers at sea. 

But before those last an-angements, and by way of prepa- 
ration for them, the Pilgrims — formally assembled, as we may 
presume, under the presidency of their ruling elder, now with 
them — received a communication from their pastor. They 
knew how entirely his heart went with them; and that the 
great idea which they were attempting to realize by their 
migration to the new world beyond the ocean was his con- 
ception. His official counsel on that occasion — the pastoral 
letter, "which had good acceptation with all, and after-fruit 
with many" — is a material part of the history. It is itself 
an event to be studied, not only because it exhibits the re- 
ligious character and principles of the writer, but also be- 
cause it illustrates the spirit and the structure of the church 
which, having been so carefully trained by him, was then 
passing over to plant itself in America : 



A.I). 1620.] THE PASTORAL LETTER. 289 

"Loving Christian Friends, — I do heartily and in the 
Lord, salute you, as being those with whom I am present in 
my best affections and most earnest longings after you, though 
I be constrained for a while to be bodily absent from you. I 
say 'constrained,' God knowing how Avillingly, and much 
rather than otherwise, I would have borne ray part with you 
in this first brunt, were I not by strong necessity held back 
for the present. Make account of me, in the mean while, as 
of a man divided in myself with great pain, and as (natural 
bonds set aside) having my better part with you. And 
though I doubt not but in your godly wisdom you both fore- 
see and resolve upon that which concerneth your present 
state and condition, both severally and jointly, yet I have 
thought it but my duty to add some further spur of provo- 
cation to them that run well alreadj- — if not because you need 
it, yet because I owe it in love and duty. 

"And, first, as we are daily to renew our repentance with 
our God, especially for our sins knoAvn, and generally for our 
unknown trespasses, so doth the Lord call us in a singular 
manner, upon occasions of such difficulty and danger as 
lieth upon you, to a both more narrow search and careful 
reformation of our ways in his sight; lest he, calling to re- 
membrance our sins forgotten by us or unrepented of, take 
advantage against us, and in judgment leave us for the 
same to be swallowed up in one danger or other. Whereas, 
on the contrary, sin being taken away by earnest repent- 
ance, and the pardon thereof from the Lord sealed up unto 
a man's conscience by his Spirit, great shall be his security 
and peace in all dangers, sweet his comforts in all distresses, 
with happy deliverance from all evil, whether in life or in 
death. 

"Now, next after this lieavenly peace with God and our 
own consciences, we are carefully to provide for peace with 
all men, what in us lieth, especially with our associates; and 
for that end watchfulness must be had, that we neither at all 
in ourselves do give [offense] — no, nor easily take oflTense be- 



290 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIV. 

ing given by others. Woe be unto the world for offenses ; 
for though it be necessary (considering the malice of Satan 
and man's corrniotion) that offenses come, yet woe unto the 
man, or woman either, by whom the offense cometh, saith 
Christ (Matt, xviii,, V). And if offenses in the unseasonable 
use of things in themselves indifferent be more to be feared 
than death itself, as the apostle teacheth (1 Cor, ix., 15), 
how much more in things simply evil, in Avhich neither hon- 
or of God nor love of man is thought worthy to be regarded. 
Neither yet is it sufficient that we keep ourselves, by the 
grace of God, from giving offense, except withal we be armed 
against the taking of them when they be given by others. For 
how unperfect and lame is the work of grace in that person who 
wants charity to cover a multitude of offenses, as the Scriptures 
speak. Xeither are you to be exhorted to this grace only upon 
the common grounds of Christianity, which are, that persons 
ready to take offense either want charity to cover offenses, or 
wisdom duly to weigh human frailties; or, lastly, are gross 
though close hypocrites, as Christ our Lord teacheth (Matt. 
vii.,1-5) ; as, indeed, in my own experience, few or none have 
been found which sooner give offense than such as easily 
take it ; neither have they ever proved sound and profitable 
members in societies, which have nourished this touchy hu- 
mor. But, besides these, there are divers motives provoking 
you, above others, to great care and conscience this way. 
As, first, you are many of you strangers, as to the persons, 
so to the infirmities one of another, and so stand in need of 
more watchfulness this way, lest, when such things fall out 
in men and women as you suspected not, you be inordinately 
affected with them — which doth require at your hands much 
wisdom and charity for the covering and preventing of in- 
cident offenses that way. And, lastly, your intended course 
of civil community will minister continual occasion of of- 
fense, and will be as fuel for that fire, except you diligently 
quench it with brotherly forbearance, 

"And if takinrr of offense causelesslv or easilv at men's 



A.D. 1620.] THE PASTORAL LETTER. 291 

doings be so carefully to be avoided, how much more heed 
is to be taken that we take not offense at God himself; which 
yet we certainly do so oft as we do murmur at his provi- 
dence in our crosses, or bear impatiently such afflictions as 
wherewith he pleaseth to visit us. Store up, therefore, pa- 
tience against the evil day, without which we take offense at 
the Lord himself in his holy and just works. 

"A fourth thing there is carefully to be provided for, to 
wit : that with your common employments you join common 
affections, truly bent upon the general good ; avoiding, as a 
plague of your both common and special comfort, all retired- 
ness of mind for proper advantage, and all singularly affected 
any manner of way. Let every man repress in himself, and 
the whole body in each person, as so many rebels against 
the common good, all private respects of men's selves not 
sorting with the general conveniency.^ And as men are 
careful not to have a new house shaken with any violence 
before it be well settled and the parts firmly knit, so be you, 
I beseech you, brethren, much more careful that the house 
of God, which you are, and ai-e to be, be not shaken with un- 
necessary novelties or other oppositions, at the first settling 
thereof. 

"Lastly, whereas you are to become a body politic, using 

' Robinson, in this passage, refers to the Pilgrims' "intended course of civil 
community." Their labor (the whole of it, as Weston and others of the Ad- 
venturers contended — four days out of six, as they willingly conceded) was 
to go into the "common stock" for the founding of the colony. He knew 
what temptations were incidental to such a plan at the best, and that the 
temptations would be increased by the conflict of opinion which had arisen 
between the Adventurers and the Planters about those "common employ- 
ments." He therefore counsels them to enter heartily into the spirit of their 
enterprise as involving self-denial for the general good, to avoid the with- 
drawing of their minds from the common interest toward any advantage 
proper to one's self and not common to all, and every consideration which 
" in any manner of way '' affects the single and separate interest of the indi- 
vidual, or regards it as adverse to the interest of the colony which they are 
founding. 



292 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIV. 

among yourselves civil government, and are not furnished 
with any persons of special eminency above the rest to be 
chosen by you into office of government, let your wisdom 
and godliness a2:)pear not only in choosing such persons as do 
entirely love and will diligently promote the common good, 
but also in yielding unto them all due honor and obedience 
in their lawful administrations; not beholding in them the 
ordinariness of their persons, but God's ordinance for your 
good ; nor being like the foolish multitude, who honor more 
the gay coat than either the virtuous mind of the man or [the] 
glorious ordinance of the Lord. But you know better things, 
and that the image of the Lord's power and authority, which 
tiie magistrate beareth, is honorable in how mean persons so- 
ever. And this duty you may both the more willingly and 
ought the more conscionably to perform, because you are, at 
least for the present, to have only them for your ordinary 
governors which yourselves shall make choice of for that 
work. 

" Sundry other things of importance I could put you in 
mind of, and of those before mentioned in more words. But 
I will not so far wrong your godly minds as to think you 
heedless of these things ; there being also divers among you 
so well able to admonish both themselves and others of what 
concerneth them. These few things, thei'efore, and the same 
in few words, I do earnestly commend unto your care and 
conscience, joining therewith my daily, incessant prayers unto 
the Lord, that He who hath made the heavens and the earth, 
the sea and all rivers of waters, and whose providence is 
over all his works, especially over all his dear children for 
good, w^ould so guide and guard you in your ways — as in- 
wardly by his Spirit, so outwardly by the hand of his power 
— as that both you and we also, for and with you, may have 
after-matter of praising his name all the days of your and 
our lives. Fare you Avell in Him in whom you trust, and 
in whom I rest, — an unfeigned well-wilier of your happy 
success in this hopeful voyage, John Robinson," 



A.D. 1620.] AT SOUTHAMPTON. 293 

The official communication must have been transmitted 
to Brewster as ruling elder, and by liim communicated to 
the Pilgrim company. A private letter from Robinson to 
Carver was sent, apparently, by the same conveyance. That 
letter of personal aflection was preserved for posterity to 
read — probably because " it was the last letter Mr. Carver 
lived to see from" his pastor. It is characteristic not 
only of the writer but of the enterprise (July 27= Aug. 6). 
"I have a true feeling of your perplexity of mind and toil 
of body ; but I hope that you, who have always been able 
so plentifully to administer comfort to others in their 
trials, are so well furnished for yourself as that far greater 
difficulties than you have yet undergone (though I conceive 
them to have been great enough) can not oppress you, 
though they press you, as the apostle speaks. The spirit of 
a man (sustained by the Spirit of God) will sustain his in- 
firmity ; so, I doubt not, will yours. And the better, much, 
when you shall enjoy the presence and help of so many god- 
ly and wise brethren for the bearing of part of your burden, 
who also will not admit into their hearts the least thought 
of suspicion of any the least negligence, at least presumption, 
to have been in you, whatsoever they think in others. Now 
what shall I say or write unto you and your good wife my 
loving sister? Even only this: I desire, and always shall, 
unto you from the Lord as unto my own soul; and assure 
yourself that my heart is with you, and that I will not fore- 
slow my bodily coming at the first opportunity. I have 
written a large letter to the whole, and am sorry I shall not 
rather speak than write to them; and the more, considering 
the want of a preacher, which I shall also make some spur to 
my hastening after you. I do ever commend my best aflec- 
tion unto you, which if I thought you made any doubt of, I 
would express in more — and the same more ample and full — 
words. And the Lord in whom you trust, and whom you serve 
ever in this business and journey, guide you with his hand, 
protect you with his wing, and show you and us his savation 



294 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH, XIV. 

in the end, and bring us in the mean while together in the place 
desired, if such be his good will, for Christ's sake. Amen." 

These letters from the Pilgrim pastor to the voyagers are 
valuable to a discerning reader for their unconscious exhibi- 
tion of the spirit and inner life of the church which was seek- 
ing a home for itself in the American wilderness. For more 
than fourteen years — at Scrooby, at Amsterdam, and at 
Leyden — the church had been taught and trained by the 
writer of those letters. Through all those years, in the con- 
stant study of the Scriptures, and under the discipline of 
duty and of suffering, he had been learning, and the church 
had been learning with him. At iirst, the Separatists who 
held their meetings in the manor-house of Scrooby may have 
been like other Separatists in the strictness of their close 
communion. Attempting to realize their fundamental idea 
that a church of Christ can exist only as a fellowship of 
kindred souls voluntarily separating themselves from the 
world that lieth in wickedness, they first found that the so- 
called Church of England was not constituted in that way, 
but was designed to comprehend all subjects of the English 
crown — men of Belial as well as saints of God — and was 
therefore not at all a church of Christ. Next they found 
that the worship in the parish assemblies constituted by law 
was not only at variance with the rules and principles of the 
New Testament, but defiled by superstitious ceremonies and 
various compromises with idolatry. Therefore they could 
not content themselves with merely denouncing the theory 
of what was called the Church of England. To them that 
entire institution was Babylon ; and they made haste to 
come out of it. They testified against it by practicing, "as 
the Lord's free people," the " positive j^art of church refor- 
mation." They would have no communion with the national 
worship, with sacraments in which the unholy and profane 
were not only permitted but by law required to be partak- 
ers ; nor with prayers which, besides being prescribed and 
imposed, were superstitious in matter and ceremony, and 



A.D. 1609-20.] THE REFORMERS OF SEPARATISM. 295 

were at the best only a substitute for prayer, as the homilies 
were a substitute for preaching. Many of the early Sepa- 
ratists were so zealous against idolatry that they would have 
no religious intercourse with any who recognized the parish 
assemblies as churches of Christ, or worshiped in the estab- 
lished forms. Some advanced Puritans absented themselves 
from the liturgical part of the service, but came to church in 
time for the sermon, and for the " free " or " conceived " 
prayer which the minister, if a Puritan, introduced into the 
order of public worship, after the reading from the Prayer- 
book and before the sermon. Extreme Separatists held no 
communion with mere Puritans, however advanced. Their 
judgment was that the National Church was not a Christian 
but an antichristian institution, and that all who worshiped 
in its assemblies, under whatever protest, were unfit for 
Christian communion. Such was the position held, at first, 
by Robinson, and by the church over which he presided. 

Their removal from Amsterdam, for the purpose of avoid- 
ing the contentions among the Sepai'atists there, implied no 
change of opinion on the question of religious intercourse 
with adherents of the Church of England ; but it may be 
regarded as the first step toward broader views and a more 
open communion. In their church life at Leyden — so quiet, 
so full of mutual helpfulness, so blessed with advantages for 
edification — there was spiritual growth. By their friendly 
intercourse with Christian brethren of another race and lan- 
guage, as well as by the intercourse of their pastor with the 
Reformed ministers of the city and the theologians and other 
learned men of the university, their minds were enlarged, and 
their religious sympathies wei'e (in the true sense) liberal- 
ized. In the early years of their sojourn at Leyden, we find 
Robinson maintaining against a fellow- exile (1612), the 
learned and honored Puritan, Dr. Ames,^ that there ought to 

' William Ames (often called, in the Latin form, Amesius), one of the 
most learned of the Puritan di^^nes, avoided the penalties of nonconformity 



296 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, XIV. 

be no visible communion — not even in a private meeting for 
prayer — between members of a true church and those who, 
though recognized as personally holy, are members only of a 
false church. But though he defended his position with 
much logical skill, he, not long afterward, receded from it 
(1614), and acknowledged that he had learned a new lesson. 
He had learned to make a distinction between "personal" 
religious actions — "such as arise from, and are performed 
immediately by, the personal faith and other graces of God 
in the hearts of holy men" — and "church actions" — such as 
sacraments and censures, which imply "a church state and 
order." Referring to what lie had written in his correspond- 
ence with Ames, he says of this distinction, "It would have 
cleared the question to my conscience ;" and it was that 
" with Avhich I did wholly satisfy myself in this matter, when 
God gave me once to observe it." His treatise, "Of Relig- 
ious Communion, Private and Public," is founded on that 
distinction. He says: "The thing I aim at in this whole dis- 
course is, that we who profess a separation from the English 
national, provincial, diocesan, and parochial church and 
churches, in the whole formal state and order thereof, may, 

by escaping from Archbishop Bancroft and the High Commission into Hol- 
land in KJOI), and fonnd emplo3ment as minister of an English congregation 
at the Hague. Dismissed from that place in 1612, at the instigation of 
Archbishop Abbott, and by the intervention of the I^^nglish embassador — and 
prevented, by the same influence, from being called to one of the theological 
professorships in Leyden — he was afterward, for twelve years, professor of 
theology in the University of Franeker. Thence, in failing health, he re- 
moved to Kotterdam, where he was associated with Hugh Peters in the care 
of an Independent church. In his character as professor in a Dutch uni- 
versity, he was a member of the Synod of Dort, and had a conspicuous part 
in the Arminian controversy. He was highly esteemed by Puritans on both 
sides of the Atlantic ; and, at the time of his decease, in 1 633, he was ex- 
pecting to remove to New England. Two of his works, "Cases of Con- 
science," and "Medulla Theologian," were regarded as classical; and the 
latter, when Yale College was instituted, nearly seventy years after his death, 
was made a text-book of theologv in the " collegiate school." 



A.D. 1614-20.] THE REFORMERS OF SEPARATISM. 297 

notwitlistanding, lawfully communicate in private pvayer 
and other the like holy exercises (not performed in their 
church communion, nor by their church power and ministry) 
with the godly among them, though remaining, of infirm- 
ity, members of the same church or churches — except some 
other extraordinary bar come in the way between them and 
us."' The church in Leyden, accepting this distinction, took 
a position which the church in Amsterdam, then under Ains- 
worth's care, did not take. Between the two churches there 
was, thenceforth, without any breach of fraternity, one marked 
difierence. At Amsterdam, the Sejjaratist and the Puritan 
could not even pray together; but at Leyden, fellow-exiles, 
whether renouncing the Church of England or adhering to 
it, could unite in all those acts of worship or of mutual edifi- 
cation in which there is no necessary reference to a church 
or its ministry — " of which sort are private prayer, thanks- 
giving, and singing of psalms, profession of faith and con- 
fession of sins, reading or opening the Scriptures, and hearing 
them so read or opened, in the family or elsewhere, without 
any church power or ministry coming between." 

Another extreme conclusion on the part of the early Sepa- 
ratists was that not only the idolatrous images and pictures 
in the edifices built for Roman Catholic worship, but the 
edifices themselves, were monuments and implements of idol- 
atry, and as such ought to be destroyed. Robinson's own 
language Avas : " As the temples, altars, and high places for 
those Baalims and other idols, were by godly kings to be 
rased down and taken away (Deut. xii., 1-3 ; 2 Kings x., 25 
-28 ; xviii., 1, 3, 4), and no way to be employed to the true 
worship of God ; so are the temples, with their appurtenan- 
ces, built to the Virgin Mary, Peter, Paul and the rest — 
though true saints, yet the Papists' false gods and very 
Baalims — to be demolished and overthrown by the same 
lawful authority, and in the mean while to be avoided as exe- 



Robinson, Works, iii., 102, lOr,. 

u 



298 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIV. 

crable things by tliem which hav(3 none autliority to deface 
or demolish them." Such was the Pilgrim pastor's teaching, 
on that point, in the early years (1010) of the sojourn at Ley- 
den. A few years later there was a controversy between 
Ains worth and John Paget (1618), minister of an English 
Puritan congregation at Amsterdam. Paget's church had 
for its place of worship a "temple," described by Ainsworth 
as " the Nuns' chapel, built for the worship of their breaden 
god and other idols;" and that Avas one of many reasons 
why the Separatists could not commune with it. In reply 
to this, Paget said, among other things : " Mr. Robinson, 
though he have written in such high words against these 
' temples,' . . . yet hath he, for this long time, tolerated Mr. 
Brewster to hear the Word of God in such places ; . . . and 
now of late, this last month, . . . begins openly, in the midst of 
his congregation, to plead for the lawful use of these ' tem- 
ples.'"^ Paget's testimony is confirmed by Robinson him- 
self. In his "Apology," he says that if these "temples" are 
not "monuments and snares of idolatry," there is no reason 
why they should be destroyed; and he marks the distinction 
between the temple regarded as a holy place by the super- 
stitious multitude, and the temple regarded simply as a place 
" in which the church may well and conveniently assemble 
together." He adds : "The former use I deem altogether un- 
lawful; the latter not so, but lawful, provided always that 
the opinion of holiness be removed, and withal such blemishes 

' Hanbury, i., 329, 333. Paget's argument, on this point, was entirely ar- 
'jumentum ad hominem. First, Ainsworth 's church, at the time of their with- 
drawal from Johnson's, did not refuse to occupy what had been a Jewish 
synagogue. Secondly, The same church, after Johnson's company had been 
dis])ossessed, was content to occupy that place. Thirdly, The members of 
the same church received alms from the Dutch in a place which they re- 
gaided as an idol temple. Fourthly, Sejjaratists were not of one mind nor 
constant to one opinion on the question. In proof of this last point, Robin- 
son's change of opinion and practice is mentioned ; and also the fact that 
some of Ainsworth's church did "sometimes hear the Dutch ministers even 
in those ' temples. ' " 



A.D. 1614-20.] THE REFORMERS OF SEPARATISM. 299 

of superstition as wherewithal things lawful in themselves 
are usually stained." 

These two points being gained in the direetion of an en- 
larged intercourse with Christians still adhering to national 
churches, another step was taken in natural sequence. If 
members of a true church might have private communion 
with Christian souls not yet separated from the false church, 
and might unite with them in all religious actions not re- 
quiring nor implying the intervention of an organized church 
or an official ministry; and if Separatists, devoutly abhorring 
all the "monuments and snares of idolatry," might neverthe- 
less regard a once idolatrous temple as nothing else than a 
place convenient for an assembly of Christian worshipers — 
especially when the majority of those assembling in it had 
ceased to honor it with superstitious veneration — still more 
when the structure, though built "for the worshijD of the 
breaden god," was really fit for the use of a parish assembly, 
instead of being a cathedral or minster " which for its mag- 
nificent building and superstitious form agrees far better to 
the Romish religion, pompous and idolatrous as it is, than 
to the reformed and apostolical simplicity " — then surely it 
might be lawful for a Separatist to hear a "lecture," or ser- 
mon, from an evangelical preacher in a parish church ; nor 
would he, in so doing, lessen the force of his protest against 
superstition and ecclesiastical despotism. Robinson saw this 
clearly in his later years, and asserted it against the rigid 
Separatists of Amsterdam. His tract on " the Lawfulness 
of Hearing the Ministers in the Church of England," though 
not written till near the end of his life, nor published till 
after his death, expresses no sudden or recent conclusion. 
The principle on which the author stands is that, as the 
Athenians who heard Paul on Mars Hill did not by simply 
hearing him acknowledge his apostleship — as a stray hearer 
coming into any Christian assembly, and listening to a ser- 
mon, does not thereby recognize that assembly as a true 
church of Christ — so those who resort to the parish temple 



300 GENESIS OF THE NS.W E^SGLAND CHURCHES. fCH. XIV. 

simply as hearers, knowing that the minister preaclies the 
Gospel of Christ, do not thereby have any communion with 
what is antichristian in the constitution and hierarchy, or 
superstitious in the ritual of the Church of England. His 
" learned, polished, and modest spirit " grew saintlier as he 
drew near to heaven ; and in none of his writings does it 
manifest itself more attractively than in this. To what 
breadth of Christian brotherly kindness he had attained, 
without compromising the great principle for which God 
had made him a witness, the closing sentences tell us. 

"To conclude: For myself, thus I believe with my heart 
before God, and profess with my tongue, and have [professed] 
before the world : 

"That I have one and the same faith, hope, spirit, baptism, 
and Lord which I had in the Churcli of England, and none 
other ; 

"That I esteem so many in that church, of what state or 
order soever, as are truly partakers of that faith (as I account 
many thousands to be), for my Christian b]-ethren, and my- 
self a fellow-member with them of that one mystical body of 
Christ scattered far and wide throughout the world ; 

" That I have always, in spirit and affection, all Christian 
fellowship and communion with them, and am most ready — 
in all outward acts and exercises of religion, lawful and law- 
fully done — to express the same ; 

"That I am persuaded the hearing of the Word of God 
there preached — in the manner and upon the grounds former- 
ly mentioned — is both lawful and (upon occasion) necessary 
for me and all true Christians withdrawing from that hie- 
rarchical order and church government and ministry, and 
[from the] appurtenances thereof, and uniting in the order 
and ordinances instituted by Christ, the only King and Lord 
of his church, and by all his disciples to be observed; 

" And, lastly. That I can not communicate with or submit 
unto the said church-order and ordinances there established, 
either in state or act, without being condemned of mine own 



A.D, 1G14-20.] THE KEFOKMERS OF SEPARATISM. 301 

lieavt, and therein provoking God, who is greater than my 
heart, to condemn me much more. 

" And for my failings (which may easily be too many, one 
way or another) of ignorance herein, and so for all my otlier 
sins, I most humbly crave pardon, first and most at the hands 
of God — and so [at the hands] of all men whom I therein of- 
fend, or have oflended any manner of way — even as they de- 
sire and look that God should pardon their ofi*enses."' 

It can not be doubted that, in all this progress, the Pilgrim 
Church as a whole, and the individual members of it, in pro- 
portion to their intelligence and the breadth of their spiritual 
sympathy, kept pace with the jiastor whom they so loved 
and honored. As his views broadened, so did theirs. As he, 
in the growth of his Christian manliness, broke the shackles 
of a narrow and self-deluding Separatism, they too were by 
liis teachings relieved and brought into freedom. We find 
him, in one instance, referring sadly to " the Avoeful exj^erience 
of many years" which he had had with unreasonable and un- 
teachable men among Separatists; "though," he adds, "not 
much, I thank the Lord, among them unto whom I have min- 
istered." ^ 

Edward Winslow was under Kobinson's ministry for three 
years before the embarkation at Delft-Haven. He knew only 
by report that the pastor had been formerly "more rigid in 
his course and way ;" but for those three years his testimony 
concerning what Robinson daily taught, or concerning the 
Catholic spirit and practice of that Pilgrim church, is as di- 
rect as it is explicit: "Never people upon earth lived more 
lovingly, and parted more sweetly than we, the church at 
Leyden, did." "That church," he says, " made no schism or 
separation from the Reformed churches, but held communion 
with them occasionally. . . . For the truth is, the Dutch and 
Frencli churches, either of them being a people distinct from 
the world and gathered into a holy communion, and not na- 

' Robinson, Works, iii., 337, 378. '■' Works, iii., 355. 



302 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECIIES, [CH. XIV. 

tioiia- cliurches, . . . the dilFerence is so small (if moderately 
pondered) between them and us, as we dare not for the world 
deny communion witli them." So far, indeed, had the Pilgrim 
pastor and his church advanced toward what in earlier years 
they would have deemed a dangerous laxity, that on one oc- 
casion they were ready, as it might seem, " to hold commun- 
ion with" the theoretically national Church of Scotland.^ 

The same witness reports "the wliolesoine counsel" which 
the Pilgrims received from their pastor " at their departure 
from him to begin the great w^ork of plantation in New En- 
gland." That wholesome counsel may have been given in 
the sermon on the day of prayer before the embarkation. 
It may have been spoken in more informal exhortation on 

' Winslow, in Young, p. 388-39G. "A godly divine coming over to Ley- 
den, in Holland, where a book was printed anno 1611), as I take it, showing 
the nullity of the Perth Assembly [one of the books for which Brewer and 
Brewster were brought into trouble, see cmte, p. 272], whom we judged to be 
the author of it, and hidden in Holland for a season to avoid the rage of 
those evil times, . . . this man being very conversant with our pastor, Mr. 
Robir^son, and using to come to hear him on the Sabbath — after sermon end- 
ed, the church being to partake of the Lord's Supper, this minister stood uj) 
and desired he might, without offense, stay and see the manner of his admin- 
istration and our participation in the ordinance. To whom our pastor an- 
swered in these very words, or to this effect : ' Reverend sir, you may not 
only stay to behold us, but partake with us if you please ; for we acknowledge 
the churches of Scotland to be the churches of Christ,' etc. The minister 
also replied to this purpose, if not also in the same words, that for his part 
he could comfortably partake with the church, and willingly Avould, but that 
it is possible some of his brethren in Scotland might take offense at his act ; 
which he desired to avoid in regard of the opinion the English churches, 
with which they held communion withal, had of us. However, he rendered 
thanks to Mr. Robinson, and desired, in that respect, to be only a spectator 
of us." 

It should be observed here that, according to Winslow's report, Robinson, 
in giving the invitation, professed to acknowledge (not the National Church, 
but) the churches of Scotland, and that the Scotchman, in his reply, said 
nothing about the Church of England as having a bad opinion of Separatists, 
but mentioned "the English churches," meaning those parish assemblies in 
which there was a Puritan administration of the Gospel. 



A.D. 1G20.] THE EEFOEMEKS OF SEPAKATISM. 303 

the day of their leaving Leyden, when, as Winslovv tells, " the 
brethren that stayed feasted us that were to go," and the 
pastor's house, after their tears, resounded with psalms and 
joyful melody. It may have been a portion of what was ut- 
tered while they were in their last meeting at Delft-Haven. 
We may even suppose the reporter to have thrown together 
his recollections of what their wise and loving pastor said on 
various occasions in view of their expected departure. It is 
enough that we have it from a credible reporter, and that 
every word of it is not only accordant Avith Robinson's char- 
acter and way of thinking, but might even be confirmed by 
quotations from his writings. 

" We were ere long to part asunder ; and whether ever he 
should live to see our faces again, was known to the Loi'd. 
But whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged 
us, before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further 
than he followed Christ; and, if God should reveal any thing 
to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to re- 
ceive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministry ; 
for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light 
yet to break forth out of his holy Word. He took occasion 
also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Re- 
formed churches, who were come to a period in religion, and 
would go no further than the instruments of their reforma- 
tion. As, for example, the Lutherans : they could not be 
drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; for whatever part of 
God's will he had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, 
they will rather die than embrace it. And so also (saith he) 
you see the Calvinists : they stick where he left them ; a 
misery much to be lamented, for though they were precious 
shining lights in their times, God had not revealed his whole 
will to them, and were they now living (saith he), they would 
be as ready and willing to embrace further light as that they 
had received. 

" Here also he put us in mind of our church covenant, or 
at least tliat part of it whereby we promise and covenant 



304 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XIV. 

with God, and one with another, to receive whatever light or 
truth shall be made known to us from his written Word. 
But withal he exhorted us to take heed Avhat we received 
for truth, and well to examine and compare it, and weigh it 
with other Scripture of truth before we received it. For 
(saith he) it is not possible the Christian world should come 
so lately out of such thick antichristian darkness, and full 
perfection of knowledge break forth at once. 

" Another thing he commended to us was that we should 
use all means to avoid and shake off the name of BroAvnist, 
that being a mere nickname and brand to make religion and 
the professors of it odious to the Christian w' orld. And to 
that end (said he), I should be glad if some godly minister 
would go over with you before my coming ; for there will 
be no difference between the unconformable ministers and 
you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances out of 
the kingdom. And so he advised us to close with the godly 
l)arty of the kingdom of England, and rather to study union 
than division, viz., how near we might possibly without sin 
close with them, rather than in the least measure to affect 
division or separation from them. And be not loath to take 
another pastor or teacher (saith he), for that flock that hath 
two shepherds is not endangered but secured by it." 

These retrospective details have arrested the progress of 
our story ; but they help us to realize what was going on 
while the Speechcell and the Mayfloioer^ at Southampton, were 
receiving their freight and passengers for a transatlantic 
voyage. A few Christian people, earnest in their faith, self- 
sacrificing in their zeal, long trained under the discipline of 
hardships and of suffering for Christ, taught by a devoted 
pastor who had brought them out of " the bitterness of sep- 
aration" into more catholic sympathies, and bound by cov- 
enant to receive whatever new light might sliine upon them 
from the Word of God, were going forth to develop, in a 
new world beyond the ocean, that conception of organized 
Christianity Avhich had been given to them, but for whicli 
there was not room enough in the old world of Eui'ODe. They 



AD. 1620.] THE REFORMEKS OF SEPARATISM. 305 

were not, consciously, political reformers, going to organize 
civil government on a new theory; nor does it appear that 
they had formed a definite judgment on the question wheth- 
er the government which had protected them in Holland 
was theoretically better than that whicH had driven them 
out of England, Far less were they dreaming of a recon- 
structed civilization which should abolish the distinction of 
rich and poor, and all the ills that flesh is heir to ; their indus- 
trious spirit abhorred even the temporary and limited com- 
munism into which they were forced by the mercantile spir- 
it of their partners. Nor had they a new scheme of Chris- 
tian doctrine to j^rovide for. They held in all sincerity what 
was then the common Protestant orthodoxy. What had 
been given to them, as that for which they were to testify 
and to sufi^er in behalf of coming ages, was an idea new to 
that age, and rejected by the wise and the mighty — the re- 
covered idea of the Christian church in the primitive purity 
of its separation from the world, and in the primitive sim- 
plicity of its government. What would be the consequences 
of their attempt to realize that idea in the colonization of 
America, they could not be expected to know. But we, who 
live at this day, can see that their theory of the church ne- 
cessitated a new theory of the relations between the church 
and the state. In their theory, beginning at the postulate 
of " reformation without tarrying for any," the church is 
nothing else than the spontaneous association of " tlie Lord's 
free people" for spiritual fellowship; and neither king nor 
Parliament can put a man into a church or put him out of 
it. Let that theory be recognized in the beginning of a com- 
monwealth, and, unless the opposite theory come in after- 
ward with prevailing force, all churches in that common- 
wealth, whatever their pretensions, will be simply voluntary 
churches, dependent on the state for nothing but protection 
against violence. The outcome of that theory, when polit- 
ical organisms shall have been moulded by its influence, will 
be a new era of religious liberty. 



306 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XV. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE VOYAGE OF THE "MAYFLOWER," EXPLORATION, AND 
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 

A VOYAGE across the Atlantic, two hundred and fifty years 
ago, might be accomplished, perhaps, in thirty days. When 
those two little vessels — the Mayfloxoer and the Speedwell — 
sailed from Southampton (1620, Aug. 5 = 15), with a hundred 
and twenty passengers, and all the material provided for 
founding a colony in the wilderness, there, was time to com- 
plete the voyage, if prosperous, before the autumnal equinox. 
After such a voyage, there would still be time, in the early 
days of autumn, to make the needful preparation for safety 
and comfort through the winter. But hardly were they at 
sea when the Speechcell was reported so leaky that both ships 
put back to the port of Dartmouth for rej^airs. Two weeks 
of fine weather and prosperous winds had been lost when 
they sailed again (Aug. 23=Sept. 2). A hundred leagues from 
Land's End, the master of their misnamed Speedwell declared 
that he must return or sink; and so, once more, they turned 
back. This time they put in at Plymouth. There the Speed- 
well was discharged, as unfit for such a voyage ; and there 
was no time, if there had been means, to provide a substi- 
tute. Some of the company Avere so far discouraged by these 
disasters that they were, at least, willing to wait for another 
opportunity. Chief among these was Cushman, exhausted 
by so many months of incessant labor, enfeebled by illness, 
and depressed under the feeling that what he had done in 
the matter of the contract with the Adventurers was disap- 
proved by his brethren. Others, in consideration of their 
weakness, or of the young children in their care, were selected 
as those who could best be spared, or who were least fitted 



A.D. 1620.] VOYAGE OF THE " MAYFLOWER." 307 

"to bear the brunt of this hard adventure." Twenty of the 
passengers, willingly or reluctantly, were left behind, with 
whatever freight could not be crowded into the other vessel ; 
and at last, another fortnight having been lost since the de- 
parture from Dartmouth, the Mayfloicer^ deeply laden with 
one hundred and two passengers and all the outfit of the 
colony they were to plant, sailed once more (Sept. 6 = 16), 
alone, to struggle with the storms of the equinox. 

Could we forget for a moment this nineteenth century, and 
all that God has wrought since that sad, but resolute com- 
pany of Pilgrims sailed tVom the old port of Plymouth, we 
might realize, as we can not now, the uncertainties of the ad- 
venture. Our thoughts follow the lonely Mayflower on the 
broad ocean, with her freight of human life — of brave and lov- 
ing hearts, of undaunted courage and unswerving faith — 
making her way slowly against adverse winds, tossed by the 
waves, yet struggling toward the west. What if she should 
founder? A few loving friends in Leyden, and a few more 
in England, will wait for tidings ; their trembling hopes for 
loved ones on the sea will change to fears — their anxious 
fears will sadden into despair ; the London merchants who 
have risked a little money on the enterprise will charge their 
investment to the account of profit and loss ; and the great 
world will never miss the Mayflower. May she not go down 
— as many a better ship goes down — in mid-ocean ? The 
probabilities are against her, but God is with her. She car- 
ries in her freight the future of the world's history. He whom 
the winds and seas obey is in her, and his angels that excel 
in strength — those ministers of his that do his pleasure — are 
guarding her. He brings her to her predestined haven, and 
a new chapter opens in the history of the Universal Church 
and of humanity. 

Some particular incidents of the voyage were thought 
worthy to be put on record : the deatli of one passenger, a 
servant to one of the Pilgi'ims ; the birth of another, whom 
his parents, in commemoration of his birthplace, named Ocea- 



A. D. 1620.] VOYAGE OF THE " MAYFLOWER." 309 

able lords" of tlie Plymouth Council for recoguition and a 
concession of territory, and might obtain a more liberal pat- 
ent than Avould have been granted to a company of Separa- 
tists negotiating before their migration. 

It must not be supposed that those men in the cabin of 
the Mayfloicer had formed a system of political philosophy, 
still less that they had adopted the theorj^ which deduces all 
social rights and duties from an imaginaiy social compact. 
They were practical men, not theorists ; their minds had 
been enlightened and invigorated by the study of tiie Bible; 
as Englishmen, they were familiar with the idea of municipal 
self-government; and their political knowledge had been en- 
larged by a long residence in republican Holland. It was 
only necessary for them to use their common-sense in deal- 
ing with a practical question. As they formed a church, six- 
teen years before, by the simple method of a covenant, it was 
natural for them to x;se the same method in forming a state. 
The form of their " combination " was marvelously simple. 
Prefixing devoutly the words which were customarily re- 
garded as giving sacredness to a compact or a testament, 
they first professed their loyalty as English subjects — and 
with good reason, for they were founding an English colony 
on soil belonging by the common consent of nations to the 
King of England, and they desired and expected that their 
native country would protect them against foreign aggres- 
sion. The)' referred to the significant fact that they were 
planting " the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia." 
With no other profession or apology — with no recognition of 
any jjossible doubt whether they had a right to do what they 
were doing — they recorded and subscribed their compact. 
" "We whose names are underwritten ... do by these pres- 
ents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one 
of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a 
civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation 
and furtherance of the end aforesaid," namely, " the glory of 
God and advancement of the Christian foith, and the honor 



310 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CIIUKCHES. [CH. XT. 

of our king and country." "By virtue hereof," they said — 
that is, Ijy tlie powers inherent in the civil body politic 
which we now constitute — we are "to enact, constitute, and 
frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitu- 
tions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most 
meet and convenient for the general good of the colony — 
unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." 

The compact was subscribed not only by members of the 
Pilgrim church and friends who had been associated Avith 
them in Holland or had joined them in England, but also 
by some who were " strangers among them," employed, per- 
haps, by the Adventurers, At the same time, it may be noted 
that some of the men who came in the 3Iayfloicer, and were 
counted among the earliest settlers in the colony — on whom 
therefore the laws that might be enacted under the compact 
would be binding — are not found among those who are re- 
ported to us as subscribers to that memorable instrument, 

Plaving subscribed their agreement, the Pilgrims seem not 
to have thought it necessary, at that time, to make any laws, 
or to define the powers of any magistrate, " They chose, or 
rather confirmed, Mr. John Carver — a man godly and well 
approved among them — their governor for that year;" and 
that was enough. A governor and two or three assistants 
had been chosen at Southampton for each ship ;^ and Car- 
ver, it seems, had been governor of the Mayfloicer on the 
voyage. His administration had been satisfactory while they 
were at sea; and at the end of the voyage he was "confirmed" 
in the same office. 

" Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to 
land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of 
heaven, Avho had brought them over the vast and furious 
ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries 
thei'eof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, 
their pi-oper element." But they had not yet found a place 

' Ante, p. 288. 



A.D. 1620.J EXPLORATION. 311 

of habitation. Late as the season was, and weary as they 
were of their life on shipboard, they must cautiously explore 
the coast, and must use their best discretion in selecting a 
site for their colony, before they could venture to disembark. 
They had now become " a civil body politic," with an organ- 
ization adequate to their present need. Their governor had 
already an armed force at his command, and that same day 
a pioneer party, with " fifteen or sixteen men well armed," 
was sent on shore to renew the exhausted supply of fuel, as 
well as to make a beginning of exploration. At night the 
pioneers returned in safety, having found the neighborhood 
a perfect solitude, and with a boat-load of red cedar, which 
they called juniper. Welcome was the supply of fuel in 
that chill November air ; and in later years some of those 
passengers remembered how sweet was the odor of it after 
their nine weeks' experience of bilge-water smells, and all 
the similar annoyances in their overcrowded vessel. 

The next day was the Christian day of weekly rest ; and 
in their unswerving deference to God's commandments, they 
remembered the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. On Monday 
(Nov. 13 = 23), they hurried forward their preparation for 
determining where their new home should be. They had 
brought with them, among all the miscellanies of their car- 
go, a shallop for use in exploring the coast, and as part of 
the necessary furniture of their colony. When the shallop, 
having been partly taken to pieces, and otherwise needing 
repairs, had been unshipped and drawn on land for the car- 
penter (which was the first work of that Monday morning), 
the people went ashore to refresh themselves; and there the 
women, with housewifely zeal, improved the opportunity to 
do the homely Monday work of washing clothes, " as they 
had great need." Joyful was that washing-day — odors of 
pine and sassafras in the air, and "coals of juniper" under 
their kettles — not less joyful than toilsome ; for their feet 
Avere at last on the soil of New England. 

X 



312 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XV. 

We need not rehearse in detail the story of their three ex- 
peditions in search of a place for settlement. The briefest 
summary will serve our purpose. First, while the carpenter 
was proceeding with the "slow work" of repairing the shal- 
lop, sixteen volunteers obtained leave to travel by land, and 
set out, on Wednesday, " with every man his musket, sword, 
and corslet, under the conduct of Captain Miles Standish." 
They saw Indians, who fled from them in terror and could 
not be overtaken. After twenty-four hours of thirst (for 
they carried " neither beer nor water" with them, and their 
food was "only biscuit and Holland cheese"), they found 
fresh springs in one of the sandy valleys of Cape Cod ; and 
delightful was their lirst draught of New England water. 
They found old Indian corn-fields, Indian graves, a ship's 
kettle — with other obscure signs that shipwrecked mariners 
had been there, and perhaps had perished there. They found, 
also, deposits of Indian corn, from which they took what 
they could carry, but no Indian habitation. Near the de- 
sei'ted corn-fields, they found what seemed a convenient har- 
bor ; but they were constrained to " leave the further discov- 
ery of it to the shallop." When their two days' leave of ab- 
sence had expired, they returned, "like the men from Eshcol, 
carrying with them of the fruits of the land ;" and thus, said 
they, " we came both weary and welcome home, and deliv- 
ered in our corn into the store to be kept for seed, for we 
knew not how to come by any, and therefore were very 
glad, purposing so soon as we could meet with any of the 
inhabitants of that place to make them large satisfaction." 

Their second expedition, much more considerable than the 
first, was when the shallop had been at last made ready. 
Twenty-four men were selected and armed (Nov. 27=Dec. 7), 
to "make a more full discovery" of the supposed harbor and 
its environs. Jones, the master of the Mayflower^ and ten 
of his men, with his long-boat, accompanied them. Hardly 
had they parted from the ship, when "rough weather and 
cross winds " compelled them to row to the nearest land the 



A.D. 1020.] EXPLORATION. 313 

wind would permit them to reach ; then, wading to the 
shore, they marched several miles in a driving and freezing 
snow-storm before encamping for the night. The next day, 
when their boats, not long before noon, had come to the ren- 
dezvous (Nov. 28=Dec. 8), they found that the creek which 
had seemed to invite their settlement, though a harbor for 
boats, was not deep enough for ships. Then visiting the 
place where the former expedition had found deposits of In- 
dian corn, and finding larger supplies, they brought away 
"in all about ten bushels" for the next spring's planting. 
At this point Jones left them, and with him they sent back 
to the Mai/flower those of their company whose strength 
seemed inadequate to the hardships they were enduring. 
Eighteen of the thirty-four remained " to make further dis- 
covery, and to find out the Indians' habitations ;" for they 
desired to meet their wild neighbors, to open a friendly in- 
tercourse with them, and " to make them large satisfaction " 
for the seed-corn. They found at last two wngwams " which 
had been lately dwelt in, but the people were gone ;" and 
with that unsatisfactory discovery they returned to their 
friends after an absence of three days (Nov. 30=Dec. 10). 

A debate followed in the little commonwealth on the re- 
port of that second exploring party, " The heart of winter 
and unseasonable weather was come upon us " (such Avas the 
most urgent argument against continued exploration), "so 
that we could not go upon coasting and discovery without 
danger of losing men and boat, upon which w^ould follow the 
overthrow of all." On the other hand, Robert Coppin, 
second mate of the Mayfloicer, who served as pilot, told them 
of a place which he had visited in some former voyage— a 
"navigable river and good harbor" near the opposite head- 
land of Cape Cod Bay, about twenty-four miles in a straight 
line from where their weather-beaten vessel was then anchor- 
ed. In the end it was resolved to make one moi-e attempt. 
Ten men, some of them the most distinguished in the com- 
pany, offered themselves for the perilous service, and were 



314 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. XV. 

appointed by common consent. To these were added two 
of the seamen who had been employed to remain in the col- 
ony, and six of the Mayflower's officers and crew. Eighteen 
in all — ten of them, at least, heavily armed — embarked in 
the frail shallop, laden with as much provision as could be 
afforded for their voyage, to encounter the perils of that last 
and most unseasonable exploration. Should they be lost, all 
would be lost.^ 

Wednesday of another week — the fourth since the arrival 
at Gape Cod — had come (Dec. 6 = 16), before the final expe- 
'dition could be sent forth, the weather on Tuesday having 
been " too foul." In their shallop, and under that " very cold 
and hard weather," they could not venture to sail directly 
across the bay toward the " navigable river and good har- 
bor," which their pilot had undertaken to find, and beyond 
which their instructions forbade them to go. After clearing, 
with much difficulty, the sandy point behind which their 
ship was anchored, they sailed southward along the eastern 
shore of the bay, where they had smoother water. But so 
severe was the cold that their clothes, wet with the spray, 
were frozen, and became " like coats of iron." As night came 
on, they went on shore, built a slight defense, gathered fire- 
wood, posted their sentinels, and took what rest was possible 
under such conditions. The next day (Dec. 7 = 1*7) they di- 
vided their force, eight of them marching through the woods, 
while the shallop with the rest was creeping along the coast; 
and at night they encamped again as before. Long before 
dawn they "began to be stirring;" and, though they had 
been roused in the night by what they supposed to be a 
pack of wolves howling around their camp, and repulsed by 
firing a couple of muskets, they suspected no danger. "Aft- 
er prayer," while they were preparing, in the twilight, for 
breakfast and for their journey, they were alarmed by " a 
great and strange cry," and a shower of Indian arrows. A 

' The story of these expeditions is given by Bradford, p. 80-88, and by 
Bradford and Winslovv, in Young, p. 1 17-162. 



A.D. 1620.] EXPLORATION. 315 

short engagement followed — the shooting of arrows on one 
side and of bullets on the other; but the Indians fled as soon 
as one of them, who seemed to be their leader, had been 
wounded. The victors, after pursuing the enemy far enough 
to show that they were " not afraid nor any way discour- 
aged, gave solemn thanks to God for their deliverance," and 
gathered up a bundle of arrows that might help to show in 
England what manner of entering in they had among the 
wild natives. 

Such was the beginning of their third day on this expe- 
dition. It was almost the shortest day of the year (Dec. 
8 = 18), and the hours of light were precious. With a 
wind which favored them at first, they ran westward along 
the curving shore, then turning northward, and finding no 
place that seemed to invite their attention, they hastened 
toward the harbor of which Coppin had told them. After 
an hour or two of sailing, that northeast wind brought rain 
and snow, and later in -the day it grew violent. The shore, 
trending northward, had become a lee shore, and "the seas 
began to be very rough." In that stoi-m their rudder broke, 
and two men with oars were hardly able to steer the crip- 
pled boat. " Be of good cheer," said the pilot, " I see the 
harbor." The storm was increasing ; night was coming on ; 
they raised all the sail they could carry, rowing at the same 
time for their lives, "to get in while they could see." Just 
then, the darkness every moment thickening, their mast was 
splintered in the gale, and the sail fell overboard. " Yet, 
by God's mercy, they recovered themselves ;" and the flood- 
tide, coming in from the east, carried them into the harbor. 
But they Avere not yet safe. "The Lord be merciful to us !" 
cried the pilot, Coppin ; " my eyes never saw this place be- 
fore." They had doubled the point now called Gurnet Head, 
and were in a cove full of breakers, the white foam just visi- 
ble in that fading light, Coppin and Clark (the two mas- 
ter's mates of the Mayflower) would have run the boat 
ashore, when a stout sailor, one of the steersmen, shouted to 



316 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. XV. 

the rowers, " About with her ! or we are cast away," and 
she was saved from the breakers. Peering through the dark- 
ness, " he bade them be of good cheer and row lustily, for 
there was a fair sound before them, and he doubted not they 
would find a place where they might ride in safety." He 
was right. The rowers did their part, and, in the darkness 
and the pouring rain, they found themselves " under the lee 
of a small island," in smooth water, where there was "sandy 
ground." There they waited for the morning. Some of 
them, remembering how that day begun, would have remain- 
ed in the boat, deeming it better to brave the elements than 
to stumble upon a nest of savages. Others were so exhaust- 
ed with fatigue and cold that they ventured ashore, and hav- 
ing succeeded in kindling a fire, they were followed by the 
rest; "for after midnight the wind shifted to the northwest, 
and it froze hard." 

A day full of labor and peril had ended in a night with- 
out rest. " Yet God gave them a morning of comfort and re- 
freshing; . . . for the next day [Dec. 9 = 19] was a fair sun- 
shining day, and they found themselves to be on an island se- 
cure from the Indians, where they might dry their stuiF, fix 
their pieces, and rest themselves ; and [they] gave God thanks 
for his mercies in their manifold deliverances." That was 
the last day of the week, and by recruiting their strength, 
drying their clothes and equipments, and refitting their fire- 
arms, " they prepared there to keep the Sabbath." Precious 
as time was to them and to their companions at Cape Cod, 
they were sure that no time would be gained, even in that 
emergency, by not keeping religiously the day of holy rest. 
(Dec. 10 = 20). 

On Monday, they first sounded the harbor, and were sat- 
isfied with its capabilities (Dec. 11=21). Then they "march- 
ed also into the land, and found divers corn-fields, a place 
very good for situation." At least, it was the best they 
could find ; and the season, and their present necessity, made 
them glad to accept it. So they returned to their ship again 




PLTMOUTH. (FROM YOUNG.) 



A.D. 1620.] LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 317 

with this news to the rest of their people, which " did much 
comfort their hearts."* 

Oil Friday of the same week (Dec. 15 = 25), the Mayflower 
weighed anchor for the harbor where her passengers and 
cargo were to be landed ; but, the wind being adverse, she 
did not arrive till the next day. Just five weeks from the 
day of her arrival at Cape Cod she "furled her tattered 
sails " in the harbor which Captain John Smith, six years be- 
fore, had named Plymouth. The Pilgrims, remembering their 
relation to the Plymouth Council, as well as the kindness of 
friends at the port from which they last sailed, had no occa- 
sion to inquire what the name of theii- colony should be. 
After their long voyage from Plymouth, in England, they 
found themselves at another Plymouth in New England. 

Again the church, which through four months had floated in 
the Mai/flower, kept its Sabbath on shipboard (Dec. 17 = 27), 
worshiping under the presidency of its ruling elder, and 
taught by him and by each other, according to their gifts of 
wisdom and of utterance, in the exercise of prophesying. On 
Monday the Pilgrims entered on a more careful examination 
of the environs of their harbor. They found traces of former 
inhabitants, and where they had planted corn, but not even 
a ruined wigwam to indicate that the place had been recent- 
ly occupied. While they saw much that seemed inviting, 
they were not ready, at first view, to fix upon a site for build- 
ing. Another day was devoted to similar inquiries, and was 
closed with a resolution that, after another night's repose, 
they would determine at which of several places their settle- 
ment should begin. Accordingly, the next morning, after 
calling on God for direction, they eliminated from the prob- 
lem all but two of the places they had thought of, and then 
went ashore to take a better view of those two before decid- 
ing betw^een them. Hy a majority of voices they determined 

' Bradford, returning with tiie other explorers, met the news of his wife's 
death. She fell overboard, and was drowned (Dec. 7 = 17), the day after his 
leaving her. 



318 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XV. 

to begin their settlement "on a high ground" which oiFered 
them many advantages. Their own description tells what 
the place was as they then saw it. "There is a great deal 
of land cleared, and hath been planted with corn three or 
tour years ago; and there is a very sweet brook runs under 
the hillside, and many delicate springs of as good water as 
can be drunk, and where we may harbor our shallops and 
boats exceeding well ; and in this brook much good lish in 
their seasons ; on the farther side of the river also much 
corn-ground cleared. In one field is a great hill, on which 
we point [propose] to make a platform and plant our ord- 
nance, which will command all round about. From thence 
we may see into the bay, and far into the sea ; and we may 
see thence Cape Cod.^ Our greatest labor will be fetching 
of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile ; but 
there is enough so far off." 

That day they made a beginning there ; and at night, re- 
solving that in the morning they would come ashore in full 
force to build houses, they left a few men encamped on the 
spot. Two days of tempest followed, in which it was im- 
possible for those on shipboard to communicate with those 
on shore. But on Saturday they began, with all their avail- 
able strength, to provide material for building, cutting down 
trees for timber and dragging them to the place. Some re- 
mained thi'ough the next day to keep guard on shore while 
keeping the Sabbath ; but the public worship was where the 
church was, on the Mayflower. 

' The "great hill" is "Burial Hill, rising one hundred and sixty-five feet 
above the level of the sea, and covering about eight acres. The view from 
this eminence — embracing the harbor, the beach, the Gurnet, Manomet 
Point, Clark's Island, Saquish, Captain's Hill in Duxbury, and the shores of 
the bay for miles around — is unrivaled by any sea-view in the country." — 
Young, p. 167, 1 68. So says Pierpont : 

"The earliest ray of the golden day 
On that hallowed spot is cast ; 
And the evening sun, as he leaves the world, 
Looks kindly on that spot last." 



J i HI II 







ii'i'i,!;;' , I 



^^^'^N^:Alii|i;iii'p^^#i'fer' ^"^^ V 



A.D. 1620.] LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 319 

Monday was the great ecclesiastical festival of Christmas 
— a day which neither Christ nor his apostles had made holy 
— a holiday which, in the view of the Pilgrims, was more 
nearly related to the pagan Saturnalia than to any due com- 
memoration of the world's Redeemer, and against which they 
had testified even in Holland. It was with a not unpleasant 
consciousness of being in a new world that they returned to 
their work. " We went on shore," they say, " some to fell 
timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry ; so no 
man rested all that dayy On that day they " began to erect 
the first house for common use, to I'eceive them and their 
goods." Another circumstance made it a memorable Christ- 
mas to them. The supply of beer with which they had left 
England was beginning to fail. On that day, they say, " we 
began to drink water aboard. But at night the master 
caused us to have some beer; and so on board we had, divers 
times, now and then, some beer, but on shore none at all." 
They had something to learn about the virtues of water as a 
drink. 

With frequent interruptions by " foul weather, that they 
could not go ashore," they pursued their work. Three days 
after the Christmas when " no man rested," they began to 
build their fortification on Burial Hill. On the same day they 
laid out a street now known as Leyden Street, and made ar- 
rangements for building a common house, and private houses 
for the nineteen families into which they divided their com- 
pany. Under their busy hands, the street soon began to 
show the beginning of a civilized settlement. Now and 
then "great smokes of fire," miles away, reminded them that, 
while they trusted in God, they must be ready to defend 
themselves. Some of them attempted to find the Indians, in 
hope of establishing friendly relations with them ; but they 
could find only deserted wigwams. No Indian showed him- 
self near them ; but they never knew how many savages 
might be lurking and watching in the woods aronnd them. 
When the common house — only about twenty feet square — 



320 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XV. 

was SO nearly completed that it needed only the thatched 
roof that was to cover it (Jan. 9 = 19), they distributed by 
lot, according to Bible precedents, " the meersteads and gar- 
den-plots " of their little town, and agreed that every man 
should build his own house, thinking that "by that cause men 
would make more haste than working in common." 

The day came when they had purposed, as a church, to 
keep the Sabbath on shore (Jan. 14 = 24), the majority of the 
congregation being there. But that morning, about six 
o'clock, in a high wind, the thatch of their " great new ren- 
dezvous " took fire from a spark, and went off in a blaze. The 
house was full of beds laid side by side ; loaded muskets 
were hanging on the walls or standing in corners ; powder 
was under the beds in canisters or powder-horns; Carver 
and Bradford, lying sick, were in imminent danger of being 
" blown up with powder." But they " rose with good speed," 
and the building and all the lives were saved, though the 
chief loss came on those two. The people on shipboard, 
more than a mile from the shore, saw the fire, and naturally 
supposed that the Indians were there ; but they could do 
nothing, for the tide was out. When the coming in of the 
tide, an hour later, permitted them to land and to see how 
little harm the fire had done, we may be sure the worship of 
the assembled church, under that wintry sky, though it may 
have deviated in some points from their ordinary public 
worship, was fervent with the thankfulness of joy. For the 
next Sunday (Jan, 21=31) their simple record is, " We kept 
our meeting on land." 

The church that embarked at Delft-Haven, and re-embarked 
at Southampton — the organized church that has floated in 
the Mayfloioer so many weeks and weary months, keeping 
its holy Sabbaths, mingling its prayers and psalms Avith the 
voices of the wind and the sea — is landed at last "on the wild 
New England shore." From the day when it begins to hold 
its worshiping assembly on Burial Hill, organized Christian- 
ity — Christ's catholic Church in its simplest and most prim- 



A.D, 1620.] LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 321 

itive organization — is planted here. The Christian church 
has brought with it the Christian state, organized for the 
time under the form of a pure democracy. But in these ar- 
rangements there is no identification of the church with the 
state — no subjection of either in its own sphere to the dicta- 
tion of the other. In the Separatist colony of Plymouth there 
is a free church, dependent on the state for nothing but pro- 
tection ; and a free state, in which the church has no con- 
trol otherwise than by quickening and enlightening the mor- 
al sense of the people. That which will be the American 
system of the relations between the church and the state has 
come into being in the cabin of the Muyfloioer ; and a church 
history distinctively American has begun when the Pilgrims 
transfer the government of their little commonwealth, and 
the Sabbath assemblies of their church, from the ship which 
has brought them across the ocean to the shore Avhich their 
footsteps consecrate to liberty and to God. 

Note referred to on page 308 : 

"After some deliberation had among themselves and with the master 
of the ship, they tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward, ... to 
find some place about Hudson's River for their habitation. But after they 
had sailed that course about half the day, they fell among dangerous shoals 
and roaring breakers ; and they were so far entangled therewith as they con- 
ceived themselves in great danger ; and, the wind shrinking upon them with- 
al, they resolved to bear up again for the cape." — Bradford, p. 77. 

It has been assumed that the intention of the Pilgrims, when they sailed 
from England, was to settle in the territory for which they had a patent 
from the Virginia Company — in other words, south of the Hudson. But 
had not their plan been gradually modified ever since the beginning of their 
intercourse with Weston? — Ante, p. 276, 278 ; Bradford, p. 43, 44. Did 
they not, when they sailed, regard themselves as "having undertaken, for 
the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our 
king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts 
of Virginia," whei-e the Virginia Company had no jurisdiction or posses- 
sion ? That voyage was undertaken at the very time when the disorganized 
Plymouth Council for colonizing "the north parts of Virginia" were urging 
their petition to be reincorporated, and "that their territory may be called 
—as by the Prince, his Highness, it hath been named— New England. " The 

Y 



322 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.XV. 

arrival of tlie Pilgrims at Southampton (from Leyden) was ten days before tlu' 
date of the king's warrant to his solicitor (July 21,0. S.), '^to prepare a 
new patent for the Adventurers to the northern colony of Virginia." Six 
days before the Mayflower came in sight of Cape Cod, the new patent incor- 
porating the Plymouth Council, "for the planting, ruling, ordering, and gov- 
erning of New England, " received the royal signature. — Prince, p. 1 GO. ' ' Some 
place about Hudson's River " might be found on either side of the 40th de- 
gree of N. latitude, the boundary between Virginia proper and those "north- 
ern parts of Virginia iiicli were the domain of the Plymouth Council. 




THE " MAYFLOWER. 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 323 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 

When the Pilgrim Church had planted itself on American 
soil, there was no certainty that it could live through tlie 
remainder of that winter. The question whether they could 
keep together under the distress that was coming upon them 
might have been considered doubtful. What was to hinder 
them from quarreling, as hungry men are prone to do? If 
they were the unintelligent fanatics whicli they are some- 
times supposed to have been, what was to hinder them from 
falling into anarchy ? What reason was there to hope that 
the slight bond which held their body politic together would 
not break at the first trial of its strength? The character 
of the men gives the answer to such questions. "After they 
had provided a place for their goods or common store, and 
begun some small cottages for their habitation as time would 
admit, they met and consulted of laws and orders both for 
tlieir civil and military government as the necessity of their 
condition did require." The members of the nascent com- 
monwealth were not all from Lej'den, nor all of one mind 
and temper. "In those hard and difficult beginnings," there 
were "discontents and murmurings among some, and muti- 
nous speeches and carriage in others ; but thej^ were soon 
quelled and overcome by the wisdom, patience, and just and 
equal carriage of things by the governor and better part." 
Gradually the simple democracy, the earliest instance of 
ISTew England town-meeting government, was proving itself 
equal to the need of the little republic. 

There was another way in which the colony might be an- 
nihilated. After so long a voyage in a crowded vessel, with 
insufficient accommodations at the best, and such food as 



32,4 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

sea-farers in those days were compelled to live on, and after 
their great exposures to cold and rain, many of them could 
have only a feeble hold on life ; and it is difficult to conceive 
how there could be one in whom there was not some lurk- 
ing disease. Six of the passengers died while the ship was 
lying at CajDe Cod.' Almost from the date of their arrival 
in Plymouth harbor they were wasting away. Bradford 
tells the sad story with characteristic simplicity: "In two 
or three months' time half of their company died, . . , being- 
infected with the scurvy and other diseases which this long- 
voyage and their inaccommodate condition had brought 
upon them." " There died, sometimes, two or three of a 
day." When the spring opened upon them, " of one hun- 
dred persons, scarce fifty remained." ^ " In the time of most 
distress, there were but six or seven sound persons, who (to 
their great commendation be it spoken) spared no pains 
night or day ; but, with abundance of toil and hazard of their 
own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed 
them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, 
clothed and unclothed them ; in a word, did all the homely 
and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy 
stomachs can not endure to hear named ; and all this will- 
ingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, 
showing herein their true love to their friends and brethren. 
. . . Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their 
reverend elder, and Miles Standish, their captain and mili- 
tary commander ; to whom myself and many others were 
much beholden in our low and sick condition. . . . What I 
have said of these, I may say of many others who died in 

'■ One of the six, Mrs. Bradford, was drowned. The others may be re- 
garded as having died of the privations, hardships, and exposures which they 
had suffered. 

- More exactly, the deaths were : in December, six ; in January, eight ; 
in February, seventeen; in March, thirteen — forty-four in four months. Be- 
fore the arrival of the first reinforcement the number of tlie dead was just 
fifty. 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST TEAR AT PLYMOUTH, 325 

this general visitation, and others yet living, that while they 
had health — yea, or any strength continuing — they were not 
wanting to any that had need of them," 

Details like these, illustrative of character and of the Chris- 
tian spirit, are always pertinent in church history. For the 
same reason we must not omit from our story those inci- 
dents Avhich show how wide a difference in moi-al character 
and human sympathy there was between the Pilgrims and 
the rough sailors of the Mayfl.oioer. Bradford tells us that 
at first " the calamity fell among the passengers that were 
to be left here to plant. They Avere hastened ashore and 
made to drink water that the seamen might have the more 
beer."^ When Bradford himself, "in his sickness, desired 
but a small can of beer," he was harshly denied. But soon 
the hardier and more f\^vored seamen began to succumb ; 
and before April nearly half of their company had died. 
Master Jones was "something strucken" when his own men 
began to be sick and to die. He thought more kindly of 
"the sick ashore," and told the governor to " send for beer 
for them that had need of it," professing himself willing to 
" drink water homeward bound" rather than that the)^ should 
suffer. " But among his company there was far another kind 
of carriage in this misery than among the passengers. They 
that before had been boon companions in drinking and jol- 
lity, began now to desert one another, saying they would 
not hazard their lives for them — they should be infected by 
coming to help them in their cabins ; and so, after they be- 
o-an to die, would do little or nothing for them. Such of 
the passengers as were yet aboard showed them what mercy 
they could, which made some of tlieir hearts relent,". The 
boatswain, in particular, "a proud young man," had often 
cursed the passengers, and had scoffed at them (foolish 
Brownists, pretending to be saints) ; " but when he grew 

* A more tonic and nutritious drink than water seemed necessary as a pre- 
ventive of scurv)' and similar diseases resulting from low diet and the loss of 
vital force. 



326 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLA.ND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

weak, they had compassion on him and helped him. Then 
he confessed he had not deserved it at tlieir hands, and had 
abused them in word and deed, ' Oh !' saith he, ' you, I now 
see, show your love like Christians indeed one to another; but 
we let one another lie and die like dogs.'" Other instances 
there were ofsavage selfishness, which not even the sight nor 
yet the experience of Christian kindness could overcome. 

Along with the epidemic, which was sweeping so many 
into graves carefully concealed, there was the growing dan- 
ger of an attack from the Indians — danger that the surviv- 
ing Pilgrims might be cut oif all at once, and the traces of 
their enterprise be obliterated. It was almost six weeks aft- 
er their arrival before a single Indian came in sight. Then, 
in a cold and sleety morning (Jan. 31:=zFeb. 10), "the mas- 
ter and others saw two savages" who had been on Clark's 
Island, but had paddled so far away before they were seen 
that they could not be spoken to. A few da3'^s later one of 
the people, watching among tall reeds by a creek to shoot 
water-fowl, saw twelve Indians inarching by him toward 
the village, and at the same time lieard in the woods the 
noise of many more. " He lay close till they were passed ; 
and then, with what speed he could, he went home and gave 
the alarm." The few who were dispersed at work in the 
woods, of whom Miles Standish was one, returned at the 
alarm and armed themselves ; but nothing more was seen of 
the Indians, save that, just before sunset, they made a great 
tire near the place where they were discovered ; and that 
some of them stole the tools which Captain Standish and an- 
other M'ho was with him in the woods had left when they 
heard the call to arms. "This coming of the savages," says 
the Pilgrim journal, " gave us occasion to keep more strict 
watch, and to make our pieces and furniture ready, which 
by the moisture and rain were out of temper." 

The next morning they held a legislative meeting to put 
the colony into readiness for any martial enterprise. Miles 
Standish — not a member of their church, but an experienced 



A.D. 1G21.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 327 

and valiant soldier — was chosen captain, and formally in- 
vested with " authority of command" in military affairs. But 
while the meeting was in deliberation about other arrange- 
ments for defense, the business was suddenly interrupted. 
Two savages presented themselves on the top of a neigiibor- 
ing hill, and made signs which were understood as an invi- 
tation to come to them. The Pilgrims, responding with a 
similar invitation, immediately armed themselves and stood 
ready. Standish, accompanied by Stephen Hopkins, who 
seems to have had some military experience, went over the 
brook to hold a parley with the strangers. One of the two 
carried a musket part of the way, and then laid it on the 
ground, to show that their intention was peaceable. But 
the Indians would not wait. They seemed to have come on 
a reconnoissance ; for behind the hill there was a noise as if 
many more were there. It was evidently time to have their 
great guns in position ; and that part of the work was has- 
tened forward.^ 

Slowly the terrible winter passed awa3^ Milder winds 
began to blow from the south. The streams were no longer 
bridged with ice ; the snows were disappearing from the 
hills; "warm and fair weather" cheered tiie convalescent; 
"the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly." On "a fair, 
warm day," soon after the vernal equinox (March 16 = 26), the 
survivors were again assembled to comi)lete the military ar- 
rangements which they had left unfinished, when they were 
again interrupted by an alarm. A savage came boldly along 
their little street, " straight to the rendezvous," wjjere their 
town-meeting was deliberating on the means of defending 
the settlement against hostile visitors. At that point tliey 
came out to meet him, "not suffering him to go in;" for 
they Avere naturally unwilling to let him see how few and 
weak they were. To their surprise, he bade them "Welcome !" 

' The authority for all the particulars of this chapter is Bradford's History, 
p. 91-1 IG ; and the documents in Young, p. 171-1^68. 



328 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

saluting them in broken English. They regarded him with 
close attention, for he was the first native with whom they 
had been able to have any communication, "He was a tall, 
straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only 
short before, none on his face at all;" and his costume was 
very much as if he had just come out of the primeval para- 
dise^ — "stark naked, only a leather about his waist, with a 
fringe about a span long or little more." For arms, he had 
only a bow and two arrows, one of them headed. They 
found him " free in speech, so far as he could express his 
mind, and of a seemly carriage." Conversation with him 
could not be very free, for his acquaintance with their lan- 
guage was only such as he had gained by intercourse with 
fishing vessels on what is now the coast of Maine ; but 
they " questioned him of many things," and " he discoursed of 
the whole country, and of every province, and of their saga- 
mores, and their number of men and strength," giving out, 
withal, that he was himself a sagamore, though he had been 
eight months absent from his dominions. The chill March 
wind " beginning to rise a little," they had compassion on his 
shivering nakedness, and "cast a horseman's coat about him." 
He had not learned to ask for whisky, but with an Indian's 
appetite for the white man's drinks he asked for beer ; and as 
they had no beer, they gave him some of their precious " strong 
water, and biscuit and butter, and cheese, and pudding, and 
a piece of mallard, all which he liked well, and had been ac- 
quainted with such among the English." From him they 
learned that the place where they were was called Patuxet ; 
that, about four years before, it had been devastated by a dis- 
ease which had left " neither man, woman, nor child remain- 
ing," and that there was no Indian claim to the soil which 
they had begun to occupy. They learned also that their 
next neighbors on the south were subject to a chief named 
Massasoit; and that another tribe near them were the Nau- 

' Gen. iii., 21. 



A.D, 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLTilOUTH. 329 

sites, who had attacked their exploring party, and who. Toeing 
"much incensed and provoked against the English," had kill- 
ed three Englishmen only a few months ago. They found 
that the Indians w^ho had stolen their tools, and who had 
been lurking about them with various indications of hostil- 
ity, were Nausites, whose grudge against the English was 
not without cause. ^ 

After some hours of such conversation as they could hold 
with him, they " would gladly have been rid of him ;" for not 
only were they unwilling to let him see how few and weak 
they w^ere, but they knew not how far it might be safe to 
trust him. They were a little disconcerted by the discovery 
that he thought he was in a comfortable place, and intended 
not to go away that night. It was then proposed that he 
should pass the night on shipboard, and he consented ; but 
the wind was high and the tide low, so that they could not 
send him to the ship. Finding that he was not to be got rid 
of, they "lodged him that night at Stephen Hopkins's house, 
and watched him." 

In the morning (March 17 = 27) they dismissed their guest, 
giving him a knife for use, and a bracelet and a ring for or- 
nament. On his part, he promised that " within a night or 
two" he would come again, and bring to them some of their 
Indian neighbors, with such beaver skins as they had to sell. 
After long and anxious waiting, they had at last a hopeful 
prospect of amicable intei'course with the natives. 

The next day was Sunday ; and, true to his word, their 

' " These people are ill affected toward the English by reason of one Hunt, 
a master of a ship, who deceived the people, and got them, under color of 
trucking with them, twenty out of this very place where we inhabit, and 
seven men from the Nausites, and carried them away, and sold them for 
slaves, like a wretched man that cares not what mischief he doth for his 
profit." — Mourt's [Bradford and Winslow's] "Relation," in Young, p. 186. 

Many an Indian massacre on the frontier has been only a wild and 
blind vengeance on innocent settlers for the crimes of white men like that 
Hunt. 



330 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

new friend Samoset (for that was his name) came again, and 
"brouglit with him live otlier tall, proper men." Snch a 
visit on that day was'hardly desired by them, for it was a 
serious interruption of their Sabbath. Certainly the visitors 
must have made a sensation in the little village. They were 
more elaborately dressed than Samoset was at his former 
visit. Every man of them wore a deer-skin for his outer gar- 
ment ; and the one who seemed to be the chief among them 
"had a wild-cat's skin, or such like, on one arm." Most of 
them wore leggins, or "long hosen," of leather, reaching to 
the body and lastened to a leathern girdle. Like Samoset, 
they wore their hair long, some of them having it "trussed 
up with a feather, broadwise, like a fan," while one head was 
adorned with the pendent tail of a fox. "Some of them had 
their faces painted black, from the foreliead to the chin, four 
or five fingers broad; others, after other fashions, as they 
liked." Evidently they had got themselves up with their 
best apparel and in their inost impressive style, as if they 
knew it was Sunday. In accordance with advice given to 
Samoset at his first visit, they had left their bows and arrows 
a quarter of a mile from the town, thus indicating the peace- 
ableness of their intentions. They had a friendly and hospi- 
table welcome, the more fi-iendly because they brought back 
the tools that had been stolen. In the words of the Pilgrim 
narrative, "They did eat liberally of our English victuals. 
They made semblance to us of friendship and amity. They 
sang and danced after their manner, like antics." A strange 
Sabbath it was in the Pilgrim settlement, for the duty of 
hospitality and kindness to heathen neighbors was recog- 
nized as more important in that instance than Puritan strict- 
ness of Sabbath-keeping. But when the Indians produced 
their beaver skins and wanted to make a bargain, they were 
made to understand tliat among those new neighbors of 
theirs that day of the week was not a day for trade. They 
were not oifeuded by the refusal to trade on that day, but 
promised to come again " witliin a night or two." So they 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH, 331 

were dismissed, each with some little present, as soon as they 
could be sent away without offense. They were accompanied 
by an armed escort to the place where they had deposit- 
ed their own weapons ; and thence, glad and with many 
thanks, they went their way, repeating their promise to come 
again. 

But Samoset, as before, was not easily dismissed. Under 
pretense of sickness, or perhaps really ill, he remained at 
Plymouth till Wednesday morning; when the Englishmen, 
having fitted him out with " a hat, a pair of stockings, and 
shoes, a shirt, and a piece of cloth to tie about his waist," 
sent him as their messenger to ascertain why his friends had 
not conje back according to their promise. 

Meanwhile, in those bright, warm days of advancing spring, 
they were digging their grounds and planting the garden 
seeds they had brought from England ; though they Avere 
not yet quite sure that their relations with their wild neigh- 
bors would be peaceful. On the very day on which they 
sent away the reluctant Samoset, they saw, on the hill-top 
over against them, two or three savages whose gestures 
seemed to intimate hostility and defiance, and who, when 
they were approached, betook themselves to flight. But on 
Thursday — "a very fair, warm day" — while they were again 
in deliberation on their public affairs (March 22=: April 1), 
Samoset came the third time, and four others with him. 
One of the four was Squanto, the sole survivor of the tribe 
that had lately inhabited Patuxet. He, too, could speak a 
little English, and could speak it better than Samoset, for he 
was one of twenty that Avere kidnapped by Hunt seven years 
before, and sold for slaves in Spain. In some way he had pass- 
ed from Spain into England. There he had " dwelt in Corn- 
hill with Master John Slainie," a London merchant, Avho, be- 
ing interested in fishing voyages on the New England coast, 
had sent him over to be useful as an interpreter. But his 
knowledge of English, added to Samoset's, was not much. 
They succeeded, however, in communicating the information 



332 GEXESIS OF THE XEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

" that their great sagamore, Massasoit,^ was hard by, with 
Quadequiua, his brother, and all tlieir men." About an hour 
later the royal personage thus heralded made his appearance, 
with sixty followers, on the hill-top beyond the brook. On 
each side there was something of suspicion : " We were not 
willing to send our governor to them, and lliey Avere unwill- 
ing to come to us." Squanto, the more intelligent of the 
two interpreters, was sent to make arrangements for an inter- 
view. He brought back a request from Massasoit for a par- 
ley with some authorized messenger. Winslow was there- 
fore sent to negotiate Avith the savage chief, " to know his 
mind, and to signify the mind and will of the governor." 
He carried with him conciliatory presents from the white 
men — " to the king a pair of knives, and a copper chain with 
a jewel at it ; to Quadequina a knife, and a jewel to hang in 
his ear;" also, "a pot of strong water, a good quantity of bis- 
cuit, and some butter." By those little gifts out of their pov- 
erty, the Pilgrims expressed their friendliness. " A man's gift 
maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men."^ 
With no other attendance than the two interpreters, but 
not Avithout his sword and his defensive armor, Winslow 
passed over the brook, went up the hill, and, the gifts mak- 
ing room for him, he stood before the great men in the crowd 
of their Avarriors. He saluted Massasoit, in the name of 
King James, " with words of love and peace," and informed 
him that Governor Carver " desired to see him and to truck 
with him, and to confirm a peace with him as his next neigh- 
bor." Before making any definite answei', the king refreshed 
himself from the biscuit and butter and the strong Avater, and 
gave to his folloAvers what remained after he Avas satisfied. 
He intimated a desire to trade for Winslow's sword and ar- 
mor, but was informed that those precious things Avere not 

' This name is sometimes ^vritten by Bradford "Massasoyet ;" and Prince 
says : "I find the ancient people from their fiithers in Plymouth colony pro- 
nounce his name Ma-sas-so-it. " — "Annals," p. 187. 

^ Prov. xviii., 16. 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 333 

tor sale. After a while, his confidence had been so far gained 
that he ventured over the brook with about twenty of his 
men, all leaving their bows and arrows behind them, while 
Winslow remained with Quadequina as a hostage. Some 
pomp was displayed in the reception of the king. Standish 
and Allerton met him at the brook, and with a guard of hon- 
or conducted him to an unfinished house, where a green rug 
had been spread, and a few cushions laid. Then came the 
governor, " with drum and trumpet after him, and some few 
musketeers." After ceremonious salutations, the governor 
kissing the king's hand, and receiving a kiss from royalty in 
return (neither of which could have been very agreeable), 
the two sat down together, as for business. It was a sight 
to be remembered, and vividly was it described by some who 
were there. 

Massasoit was at that time in the prime of life, a stalwart 
man, " grave of countenance and spare of speech." A " chain 
of white bone beads about his neck" was the principal orna- 
ment that distinguished him from his followers, and from 
that necklace there Avas suspended a little pouch of tobacco. 
"His face was painted with a sad red," and head and face 
were oiled, "that he looked greasily." His followers, too — 
all strong, tall men — wore paint on their faces in similar 
style, " some black, some red, some yellow, and some white, 
some with crosses and other antic works." It was a pictur- 
esque congress in that rude council-house : on one side. Car- 
ver, Bradford, Standish, Allerton, and — gravest and stateliest 
among them — their revered elder, Brewster ; on the other 
side those painted wild men, some clad in skins of wild 
beasts and some naked. 

The Pilgrims had not yet learned the fatal influence of 
strong drink over the Indians. It was natural, therefore, for 
Cai'ver, in dealing with his royal visitor on so important an 
occasion, to perform, without scruple or reserve, the ritual of 
hospitalit3^ He " called for some strong water, and drank 
to him ;" and the savage responded with " a great draught 



334 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH. XVI. 

that made him sweat all the while after.'' He also "called 
for a little fresh meat" — a luxurious banquet in that first 
year of life at Plymouth — " which the king did eat willingly. 
and did give his followers." Eating and drinking together, 
especially as guest and host, is recognized as always a nat- 
ural symbol of friendly relations; and with that symbol the 
great business of the day was begun. A treaty was then 
and there concluded, which remained unbroken for more than 
fifty years, and under which the intercourse between the two 
communities, the civilized and the savage, was entirely ami- 
cable.' At the close, Massasoit lighted a pipe filled with 
tobacco from his pouch, and, after a solemn whiff or two. 
passed it to Carver and the other white chiefs, who accepted 
what they probabh- supposed to be nothing more than an 
act of courtes)- on his part. They had never heard of the 
Indian's pipe of peace, and knew not that by those few whiffs 
of tobacco-smoke the treaty was ratified, and became to the 
king and his people a sacred compact. 

' An ahstrnct of tliat lunvritteu rre.nty was incorporated into the Journal 
of the nigrim!:. published in London the next year, and was copied almost 
without change into Bradford's History twenty-four ye:trs later: 

" 1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do liuri to any of our 
people. 

'• 2. And if any of his did hurt to any of ours, he should send the oflend- 
er that we might punish him. 

"3. That if any of onr tools were taken away, wlien our people were ai 
work [or if any thing were taken away from any of ours], lie should Ciiuse 
it to be restored ; and if ours did any harm to any of his, we should do the 
like to them. 

"4. If any did unjustly war against him. we would aid him : if any did 
war against us, he should aid us. 

",">. He should send to his neighbor confederates to certify them of this, 
that thcv might not wrong us, but might be likewise comprised in the con- 
ditions of pe;\ce. 

"6. Tliat when their men came to us. they should le:ive their bows and 
arrows behind them, as we should do our pieces when we came to them. 

" Lastlv, That doing thus, King James would esteem of him as his friend 
and allv. " 



A.D. IG'Jl.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH, 335 

When all was done the governor accompanied his visitor 
to the brook, where they parted, a few of the Indians being- 
still detained as hostages for Winslow's safety. Then fol- 
lowed a visit from Quadeqnina, "and a troop with him," who 
had not yet seen the white men's village. The king's broth- 
er " was a very proper, tall young man, of a very modest 
and seemly countenance;" and though so much afraid of the 
tire-arms that, to relieve his mind, they were put out of sight, 
he was much pleased with his reception. When he went 
over the brook, there was the formal exchange of hostages. 
Two of his men proposed to remain through the night, but 
were not permitted ; for the contidence of the Pilgrims in 
their new friends was not perfect. ''That night," says their 
journal, " we kept good watch ; but there was no appearance 
of danger." 

Even the friendship of Indian neighbors is not in every 
respect desirable. The king and all his men, and their 
squaws with them, had encamped in the woods not more 
than half a mile off; and the next morning "divers of their 
people" were in Plymouth again, evidently "hoping to get 
some victuals." They said that the king would be pleased 
with a visit from some of the white men. Standish and Al- 
lerton "went venturously," and were hospitably entertained 
with "three or four ground-nuts and some tobacco." ]\Iean- 
while the Indian visitors at Plymouth were making them- 
selves familiar, and "stayed till ten or eleven of the clock," 
but were at last got rid of by the governor's sending for the 
king's kettle and filling it with pease for them to carry home. 
" and so the)' went their way." On the whole, the Pilgrims, 
weak and impoverished as they were, could not have been 
very much gratified with the promise of their allies " that 
within eight or nine days they would come and set corn on 
the other side of the brook, and dwell there all summer." 
At the best, it was as if they were to have in their imme- 
diate neighborhood, through the summer, a great encamp- 
ment of gypsies, trucking, begging, stealing, and committing 



336 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

all sorts of trespasses. Happily for both parties, the promise 
was not kept. 

The Pilgrims were beginning to understand thei; neigh- 
bors ; but they were not on that account disposed to relax 
theii" preparations for self-defense. As the new year (accord- 
ing to the ancient calendar) was about to open (March 23 = 
April 2), they completed their " military orders," and ordain- 
ed some other laws which seemed necessary in their " pres- 
ent estate and condition." At the same time they renewed 
their choice of Carver as governor of the colony — their 
sole magistrate, with indefinite powers, but continually re- 
sponsible to " the whole company." Within a week from 
that day there was occasion for them to demonstrate the fact 
that they had a government. John Billington, a profane 
and worthless fellow, who came from London, and had been 
"shuffled into their company," perhaps by "friends" who 
thought that he might be made better by transportation, 
seems to have had a violent dislike of Captain Miles Standish, 
and to have uttered in "opprobious speeches" his "contempt 
of the captain's lawful commands." Thereupon he was " con- 
vented before the whole company ;" and for his offense he 
was sentenced " to have his neck and heels tied together." 
It was beginning to be manifest that the government must be 
respected, that the "military orders" were not to be trifled 
with, and that Captain Miles Standish was the lawful com- 
mander of a force sufficient for the punishment of evil-doers. 
John Billington, therefore, upon hearing the sentence, "hum- 
bled himself and craved pardon ;" and, as this was the first 
offense since the ariival in New England, the penalty was re- 
mitted. 

All this while the Mayflower had been lying in the harbor. 
Carver and the others had judged it unwise to send her away 
in midwinter, while the colony, daily growing w^eaker by 
sickness and death, might be destroyed any day by a sudden 
attack from the Indians. Jones, too, the master of the ship, 
though at first impatient of delay, became afraid to encoun- 



A,D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 337 

ter the perils of a winter voyage while the survivors of his 
crew were slowly recovering from the sickness of which so 
many had died. But when the spring had come, when a trea- 
ty had been made with the neighboring Indians, and when 
all practicable arrangements for the defense and the con- 
tinued lil'e of the colony had been completed, "they began 
to dispatch the ship away which brought them over;" and 
about the middle of April, as we measure the months (April 
5 = 15), she sailed for England. It was a new trial to be 
left — only about fifty of them, men, women, and children — in 
that almost boundless solitude ; and, doubtless, it was through 
their tears that they saw her sail lessening till it became a 
dim speck in the horizon. But the thought of what they 
had sufiered in their great undertaking, and of the graves 
which they had dug through the snow into the frozen earth 
— the thought of the love and hope that were lingering at 
Leyden, and of the prayers which brethren in England were 
offering for their success, would not pernxit them to retreat 
from the position they had gained at so great a cost. Not 
one returned in the Mayfloioev — though why John Billington 
and some others of the same sort did not return has never 
been explained. 

It was now time for planting. All the force of the colony 
must be turned in that direction ; for Plymouth w-as to be 
not merely a trading station (which might have been satis- 
factory to the Adventurers in London), but a permanent 
abode of civilization, a place attractive to Christian families, 
a refuge for the church of God. Bradford and others of the 
company had practiced in their youth " the innocent trade 
of husbandry ;" but during the twelve years of their pilgrim- 
age in Holland they had been employed in the various in- 
dustries of a manufacturing city. What would their almost 
forgotten skill in husbandry be worth on a soil which, till 
then, had never been furrowed, and under a climate of which 
they knew .indeed how cold it was in winter, but knew not 
as yet what might be the vicissitudes of the seed-time, the 



338 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

summer, and the harvest. "Some English seed they sowed, 
as wheat and pease, but it came not to good, either by the 
badness of the seed, or the lateness of the season, or both, 
or by some other defect." Fortunately — rather let us say, 
wisely — they sowed only six acres with the exotic " wheat 
and pease," while they planted twenty acres with the native 
grain, which they knew had flourished there through untold 
ages. In the planting of those twenty acres, they had Squan- 
to's Indian lore to guide their English inexperience. Pie 
taught them how to plant the corn in hills, how to manure 
it with fish, and how to ^dress and tend it. At the same 
time, he initiated them into his ancestral methods of taking- 
fish, for, strangely enough, their outfit at Southampton had 
not included a supply of "small hooks." He told them also 
how soon their brook would be alive with herring, and 
"where they might get other provisions necessary for them." 
Grievously as he had been wronged by Englishmen, he had 
learned to " discern between the righteous and the wicked." 
So long as he lived, he was to these Englishmen a fliithful 
friend. 

While they were thus busy with their planting, their gov- 
ernor, on one of those hot days which sometimes vary so 
suddenly the temperature of a New England spring, came 
in from the field, complaining as if he had suffered a sun- 
stroke. He lay down, soon became unconscious and speecli- 
less, and in a few days he died. " This worthy gentleman," 
says the church record, in affectionate commemoration, "was 
one of singular piety, and rare for humility — whicli appeared, 
as otherwise, so by his great condescendency. When as 
this miserable people were in great sickness, he shunned not 
to do very mean services for them — yea, the meanest of them. 
He bare a share likewise of their labor in his own person, 
according as their great necessity required. Who being one 
also of a considerable estate, spent the main part of it in this 
enterprise, and from first to last approved himself not only 
as their agent in the first transacting of things, but also all 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 



339 



along to the period of his life, to be a pious, faithful, and 
very beneficial instrument. He deceased in the month of 
April, in the year 1621, and is now reaping the fruit of his 
labor with the Lord." ^ Little moi*e is known of him than that, 
after Robinson and Brewster, there was no man among the 
Pilgrims so honored and beloved, or so much the author and 
leader of their great enterprise, as he. " Devout men car- 
vied him to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." 
Feeble as they Avere, the funeral was not without some mili- 
tary pomp. "He was buried in the best manner they could, 
with some volleys of shot by all that bore arms." His wife, 
" a weak woman," had lived through many hardships and 
sufferings with him, but it soon appeared that she could not 
live without him. In live or six weeks after his death her 
weary pilgrimage was ended. 

No arrangement had been made in anticipation of such an 
event as the death of the governor. The little common- 
wealth was left without a magistrate ; but the vacancy was 
soon filled. William Bradford Avas chosen governor, " and 
being not yet recovered of his illness, in which he had been 
near the point of death, Isaac Allerton was chosen to be an 
assistant unto him." On that occasion, the office of assist- 
ant — thenceforth a permanent office — had its beginning. 
The organization of the state was slowly developed as new 
arrangements became necessary ; and already it was felt that 
there was no one man on whose life the continued existence 
of the colony depended. But for the death of Carver, his 
brethren might have thought that their colony could not 
live without him for governor. 

As yet there had never been a Christian wedding on the 
soil of New England ; and, but for the breaking up of fam- 
ilies in the mortality of the first winter, there might have 

' The quotation from the record of the church in Plymouth is found in 
Young, p. 200. It seems to imply that Carver's social position from his 
birth was somewhat higher than tliat of the plain husbandmen who dwelt 
near Scrooby, and that he had never been accustomed to any manual labor. 



340 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

been none till some of the children brought over in the May- 
flower had become old enough to marry. Edward Winslow's 
wife, Elizabeth, died in that mortality, and his house was left 
to him desolate. Willianf White, one of the chief men in 
the colony, had died before her ; and his widow, Susanna, 
was left with two little boys to care for (one of them an in- 
fant, born while the Mayfloioer was lying at Cape Cod) ; and 
with neither man-servant nor maid-servant to help her, for 
they had died also. It can not be thought strange, when the 
circumstances of the case are considered, that, at an early 
day, Edward Winslow and Susanna White were married. 
At that time, and long afterward, there could be no lawful 
marriage in England without sacerdotal intervention and the 
use of ceremonies which Puritan scrupulousness denounced 
as superstitious. By the compromises of the Anglican Ref- 
ormation, marriage had ceased to be in name a sacrament, 
without being distinctly recognized as any thing either less 
or greater than a sacrament. In Holland, the Pilgrims had 
seen what is now called civil marriage ; and by that method 
they had themselves (many of them) been joined in holy 
wedlock. There the law was " that those of any religion, 
after lawful and open publication, coming before the magis- 
trates in the town-house, or stadt-house, were to be by them 
orderly married, one to another." Accordingly, the first 
wedding in the Pilgrim colony was an open contempt of the 
canon law maintained in England ; and, to that extent, it 
was an informal declaration of independence. In conformity 
with "the laudable custom of the Low Countries in which 
they had lived," marriage " was thought most requisite to 
be performed by the magistrate, as being a civil thing upon 
which many questions about inheritances do depend," and 
which for other reasons comes properly under the cognizance 
of the state — a thing, too, which is " nowhere found in the 
Gospel to be laid upon ministers as a part of their office." 
Therefore as Adam and Eve, in the beginning of the world, 
were married without any priestly intervention — as Boaz 



A.D, 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 341 

took Ruth, the Moabite widow, to be his wife, before the eld- 
ers of Bethlehem — so Edward Winslovv and Susanna White, 
before the magistrate, Governor Bradford, and with public 
solemnities, entered into the sacred covenant of marriage. 
ISTor was theirs a godless wedding. Acknowledging God in 
all their ways, they acknowledged him especially in that 
momentous act. They married " in the Lord," ^ and the 
church, we need not doubt, invoked a blessing on their 
union. Thus, in the first New England wedding, a prece- 
dent was given which has never yet been set aside, and 
which marked clearly the distinction between the jurisdic- 
tion of the civil power in " causes matrimonial " and the le- 
gitimate jurisdiction of the church. 

The first offense in the colony had been pardoned, after 
conviction and sentence, because it was the first, and because 
the culprit's acknowledgment of his fault and his submis- 
sion to the authority which he had reviled were deemed suf- 
ficient for the ends of justice. But the next offense was of 
a more serious character. Stephen Hopkins had brought 
with him two servants — probably minors bound to service 
for a term of years. Between those two there was a quarrel, 
a challenge given and accepted, and a fight with swords and 
daggers — the first duel in New England. The wounds which 
they inflicted on each other were not thought to be an ade- 
quate punishment, and the parties were "adjudged by the 
whole company to have their head and feet tied together, 
and so to lie for twenty-four hours, without meat or drink." 
It seems that the judicial power, as Avell as the legislative, 
was exercised by " the whole company." The sentence was 
partly executed, but before one hour had passed the pain 
which the criminals were suffering was so great that they 
were released by the governor " at their own and their mas- 
ter's humble request, upon promise of better carriage." 

Among the incidents of the year was the sending of an 

' 1 Cor. vii.,39. 



342 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

embassy from Plymouth to Pokanoket, " the habitation of 
the great king Massasoit." The friendly visits of hungry 
and curious natives had become so frequent as to be trouble- 
some; and it was necessary to have some new regulations 
and a mutual understanding on that subject. It was im- 
portant not only to make farther exploration of the country, 
but also to know where the Indians might be found in any 
emergency requiring communication with them. As Massa- 
soit and his warriors, by their visit, had become acquainted 
with the weakness of the settlement as well as with its 
means of defense, it Avas thought that a deputation sent to 
return their visit would see the strength of those wild and 
uncertain allies. There was, at the same time, a desire to 
make satisfaction for some injuries which the Pilgrims thought 
they had done to Indians they knew not who. But the main 
and comprehensive purpose of the mission was "to continue 
the league of peace and friendship," which might at any mo- 
ment be broken by misunderstanding or jealousy. Winslow 
and Hopkins were appointed by the governor to represent 
him at the court of Massasoit. Squanto went with them, 
dragoman to the legation. " That both they and their mes- 
sage might be more acceptable," they were to be the bearers 
of a present for the king — "a horseman's coat of red cotton, 
laced with a slight lace." 

The message which they were to deliver from the govern- 
or at Plymouth to the king at Pokanoket was in these 
words: "That forasmuch as his subjects came often and 
without fear upon all occasions among us, so we were now 
come unto him, and, in witness of the love and good-will the 
English bear unto him, the governor hath sent him a coat, 
desiring that the peace and amity that was between them 
and us might be continued ; not that we feared them, but 
because we intended not to injure any, desiring to live peace- 
ably as with all men, so especially with them our nearest 
neighbors. But whereas his people came very often and 
very many together unto us, bringing for the most part their 



A,D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 343 

wives and children with thera, they were welcome ; yet, we 
being but strangers as yet at Patuxet, and not knowing how 
our corn might prosper, we could no longer give them such 
entertainment as we had done and as we desired still to do. 
Yet if he would be pleased to come himself, or if any special 
friend of his desired to see us, coming from him they should 
be welcome. And to the end we might know them from 
others, our governor had sent him a copper chain, desiring if 
any messenger should come from him to us we might know 
him by [his] bringing it with him, and hearken and give 
credit to his message accordingly. [Our governor] also re- 
quested him that such as have skins should bring them to 
us, and that he would hinder the multitude from oppressing 
us with them. And whereas, at our first arrival at Paomet, 
called by us Cape Cod, we found there corn buried in the 
ground, and finding no inhabitants, but some graves of dead 
new-buried, took the corn, resolving, if ever we could hear 
of any that had right thereto, to make satisfaction to the 
full for it; yet, since we understand the owners thereof were 
fled for fear of us, our desire was either to pay them with 
the like quantity of corn, English meal, or any other com- 
modities we had to pleasure them M'ithal ; requesting him 
that some one of his men might signify so much unto them, 
and we would content him for his pains. And, last of all, our 
governor requested one favor of him, which was that he would 
exchange some of their corn for seed with us, that we might 
make trial which best agreed with the soil where we live." 

With this message and the presents, Winslow and Hop- 
kins, on one of the long days in the hottest part of a New 
England summer (July 2 = 12), set forth, the friendly Squanto 
guiding them through the wilderness. Leaving Plymouth 
Monday morning, and passing the first night " in the open 
fields," they arrived the next day (July 3 = 13), after various 
adventures, at the royal residence, about forty miles from 
Plymouth. The king, though not at home, Avas near enough 
to be sent for, and to come with no great loss of time on 



344 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [cil. XVI. 

their part. At his return they gave him, as Squanto had re- 
quested, a military salute by discharging their pieces. He, 
after the Indian fashion, kindly welcomed them, took them 
into his house, and set them down by him. Then, having 
delivered their message and the presents, they put the red 
cotton coat on his back and the copper chain about his neck, 
and had the satisfaction of observing that "he was not a lit- 
tle proud to behold himself — and his men also to see their 
king — so bravely attired." 

The king's answer, on all points save one, was promptly 
given. "He told us we were welcome, and he would gladly 
continue that peace and friendship which was between him 
and us; and, for his men, they should no more pester us as 
they had done; also, he would send to Paomet, and would 
help us with corn for seed, according to our request." But 
in respect to the trade in beaver and other skins, he seemed 
to feel that more formality was necessary to the validity of 
the answer. He made "a great speech" to his men who 
gathered near him, " they sometimes interposing, and, as it 
were, confirming and applauding him." For each of thirty 
places which he claimed, one after another, as his own, using 
the same form of words, they responded in a similar formula. 
It was his, and they would be at peace with the Englishmen, 
and would bring their skins to Plymouth. Satisfactory as 
these affirmations were, the repetition of the same words 
thirty times could not but seem tedious to the weary and 
hungry embassadors. 

They were hungry as well as weary, for, of the provision 
for their journey, they had imparted freely to the Indians 
near whose camp they passed the preceding night, not 
doubting that they would have enough wherever they might 
come; and though they "broke their fost" very well in the 
morning, they had traveled all day without finding much to 
eat. The pipe of peace, which was solemnly circulated at 
the close of the formal conference, was a very inadequate 
substitute for food. Massasoit, with the aid of Squanto, talk- 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 345 

ed about England and King- James, also about the French- 
men, who, to his disgust, had intruded into Narraganset Bay, 
but he said nothing about supper. "Late it grew, but vict- 
uals he offered none ; for indeed he had not any, being he 
came so newly home." So the embassadors sought such ref- 
uge from hunger as sleep might give them. " On hospitable 
thoughts intent," the king shared his own couch with them 
— he and his wife at one end of the long, low platform, they 
at the other. Tiien, as if that accommodation were not 
scanty enough, they found " two more of his chief men " 
crowding in with them for want of room elsewhere. They 
might well say, " We were worse weary of our lodging than 
of our journey." 

Morning came at last (July 4 = 14), but no breakfiist. 
There was a fresh throng of petty chiefs and other Indians, 
attracted to see the strangers, but using the opportunity to 
play " their manner of games " — whether of chance or of 
skill — "for skins and knives." So the lon^ summer morn- 
ing wore away, and about an hour after noon " Massasoit 
brought two fishes that he had shot" with arrows. The 
fish were large, and good for food ; but what were they 
among so many? At least forty, when the fish were boiled, 
" looked for share in them," and few of the forty failed of 
getting something. " This meal only," said Winslow, " we 
had in two nights and a day ; and had not one of us bought 
a pai'tridge, we had taken our journey fasting." The king 
was "very importunate" to have them stay longer; and 
why they declined his urgent invitation, Winslow tells us: 
" We desired to keep the Sabbath at home, and feared we 
should be light-headed for want of sleep ; for what with bad 
lodging, the <¥;avages' barbarous singing (for they use to 
sing themselves asleep), lice and fleas within doors, and mos- 
quitoes without, Ave could hardly sleep all the time of our 
being there ; we much feared that if we should stay any 
longer, Ave should not be able to recover home for Avant 
of strength. So, on the P"'riday morning (July 6 = 16), before 



346 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH, XVI, 

sunrising, we took our leave and departed, Massasoit being 
both grieved and ashamed that he could no better entertain 
us." Through that day they suiiered from want of food, be- 
ing able to purchase from Indians on the way only "a little 
fish " and a handful of their parched corn, pulverized by 
pounding. But at night they obtained "good store offish" 
— enough for supper and for their breakfast on Saturday. 
Drenched in rain, which began to come down like a deluge 
in the night and continued all the next day, they pressed 
forward, and " came safe home that [Saturday] night," thank- 
ful, " though wet and weary," 

Their own report abounds in picturesque details both of 
their personal adventures and of their observations on the 
country through which they passed — at that time a pathless 
wilderness, almost emptied even of its wild inhabitants — now 
" a delightsome land," studded with towns and villages, hal- 
lowed with temples of intelligent and spiritual worship, 
adorned with hotnesteads perched on the hillsides or nestling 
in the valleys, and abounding in the wealth created by the 
industry of Christian civilization. But the historian of Plym- 
outh colony gives the results of their embassy in a few 
words: "They found but short commons, and came both 
weary and hungry home. For the Indians used then to have 
nothing so much corn as they have since the English have 
stored them with their hoes, and seen their industry in break- 
ing up new grounds therewith. They found Massasoit's 
place to be forty miles from hence, the soil good and the 
people not many, being dead and abundantly wasted in the 
late mortality which fell in all these parts, about three years 
before the coming of the English, and in which thousands of 
them died. They not being able to bury one •another, their 
skulls and bones were found in many places, lying still above 
ground where their houses and dwellings had been — a very 
sad spectacle to behold. But they brought word that the 
Narragansets lived but on the other side of that great bay, 
and were a strong people and many in number, living com- 



A. D. 1621,] THE FIRST YEAE AT PLYMOUTH. 347 

pact together, and bad not been at all touched with this 
wasting plague." 

An intense feeling of loneliness must have been habitual 
with those surviving exiles — so few, and so cut oif from com- 
munication with the civilized world. Seven months since 
they sailed from the old English Plymouth — months how 
full of suffering and sorrow! — had passed when the May- 
flower left them in their solitude. Month after month was 
passing, the year was completing its round ; and all the 
while they had not one word from Leyden or from England. 
The summer gave them busy employment, not only witli 
their corn-field and gardens, and with the building of their 
cottages in preparation for another winter, but also with va- 
rious excursions for exploration and for opening trade with 
the natives. An unlucky boy, one of the Billingtons (July), 
strayed into the woods, and wandered, famishing, till he 
came to a village of Indians, twenty miles away, who sent 
him to a still greater distance. This gave occasion for an 
expedition of ten men in the shallop to the Nausites, the 
tribe who attacked the exploring party when the Mayflower 
was lying at Cape Cod. Finding a harbor for the first night 
at Cummaquid (now Barnstable), they encountered there an 
aged woman, who came to see them because she had never 
seen an Englishman, yet, when she saw them, " broke forth 
into great passion, weeping and crying excessively." Her 
story was "very grievous" to them. Seven years before,' 
an Englishman seized and carried off in his vessel her three 
sons, "■ by which means she was deprived of the comfort of 
her children in her old age." They assured her that all good 
Englishmen abhorred the man who robbed h*er of her sons ; 
and, in token of their sympathy, they gave her some little 
presents to appease her grief Touching next at Nauset 
(now Eastham), they were in the midst of the savages whose 
arrows, flying around them, gave them so great an alarm a 

' Ante, p. 329. 



348 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

few months before.^ Yet they succeeded, not only in recov- 
ering the boy, " behung with beads," ^ but also in gaining the 
confidence of that tribe. Nor did they neglect the oppor- 
tunity of making full satisfaction for the corn which, in their 
necessity, Avhen the winter was upon them in the wilderness, 
they had taken from Indian granaries, and for the owners of 
which they had already made inquiry. Of a military expe- 
dition, sent forth (Aug. 13 = 23) when a report came that 
JSquanto had been killed because he was their friend ; and 
of a more peaceful expedition (Sept. 18 = 28) which explored 
the harbor where Boston now is, and which resulted in 
opening commercial intercourse with the natives there, we 
need not tell the story. While some were thus employed in 
affairs abroad, others were busy in fishing; and by that in- 
dustry were endeavoring to provide for every family a sup- 
ply against the winter. Their own historian says, with un- 
affected acknowledgment of the divine Providence over them, 
"They found the Lord to be with them in all their ways, 
and to bless their outgoings and incomings; for which let 
his holy name have the praise forever." 

"All summer there was no want." In due time the har- 
vest was gathered. They had " a good increase of Indian 
corn ;" their barley was " indifferent good ;" but their pease, 
that came up well and blossomed hopefully, were " not worth 
the gathering." Meanwhile their harbor was beginning to 
show how successful the wild ducks had been with their 
broods, " and now began to come in store of fowl" as the 
autumn advanced ; and, besides water-fowl, there was " great 
store of wild turkeys " in the woods, as well as venison. Then 
they had what they might have called, in Scriptural phrase, 
" the feast of ingathering." Winslow, in a letter to a friend, 
tells how they kept it. " Our governor sent four men on 
fowling, so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice to- 

• Jn^e, p. 314, 315. 

^ Already the Nausites had begun to make an Indian of him. Boys and 
men of the Billington sort are easily converted into savages. 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIKST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 349 

gether after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They 
four ill one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help be- 
sides, served the company almost a week. At which time, 
among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the 
Indians coming among us, and among the rest Massasoit, 
with some ninety men, whom for thiee days we entertained 
and feasted." The Indian guests " went out and killed five 
deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on 
our governor and upon the captain and others," It is not 
altogether fanciful to call that three-days' feast " the first 
Thanksgiving." The New England autumnal feast, now 
kept with gladness in the homes and with worship in the 
churches, all the way from Plymouth to the Golden Gate, be- 
gan spontaneously when the Pilgiim remnant had harvested 
their first crop of Indian corn. 

Not many days later, the governor Avas startled by a mes- 
sage from the now friendly Nausites, that they had seen what 
they supjDosed to be a French ship (Nov. 9=^19) putting in 
at the harbor where the Mayflower dropped her anchor just 
a year before. While he was wondering what such an ar- 
rival might portend, the unknown vessel was seen approach- 
ing. Instantly "he commanded a great piece to be shot off, 
to call home such as were abroad at work. Thereupon," as 
Winslow wrote to his friend, " every man, yea boy, that could 
handle a gun, was ready, with full resolution that, if she 
were an enemy, we would stand in our just defense, not fear- 
ing them." But as soon as she came near enough for them 
to see what flag she bore, there was no need of guns save 
for a joyful welcome. She was the Fortune, from London, a 
small vessel, sent out by the Adventurers, and bringing a re- 
inforcement to the colony. Cushman came in her, and thir- 
ty-five others, including some at least of those who had been 
left behind when the Speeduiell failed. But these new-com- 
ers were not all such as Bradford and Brewster Avould have 
chosen. "Many of them were wild enough" — unthinking- 
young men — who had been jjicked up without carefulness. 



350 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. XVI. 

and persuaded to enlist in an enterprise which they could 
not appreciate, and who had been sent without any definite 
notion of whither they were going or Avherefore. So little 
did the Adventurers in London realize what kind of a work 
it was which they had undertaken, or what was necessary 
to its success. The reinforcement had been sent without 
any reasonable outfit. Instead of bringing supplies of food 
that might help them to live through the winter, they were 
so many more mouths to be fed out of the scanty store of the 
colony till another harvest. Even the ship that brought 
them needed to be provisioned for her return voyage. Nor 
were the new emigrants well supplied with other necessa- 
ries.' "The plantation was glad of tliis addition of strength, 
but could have wished that many of them had been of bet- 
ter condition, and all of them better furnished with provis- 
ions." 

The Fortune had not sailed from London till two months 
after the arrival of the 3IayJioioer with intelligence of all 
that had befallen the Pilgrims on their long voyage and 
through the sorrowful winter. She brought letters from 
Leyden as well as from the mother country. A business let- 
ter from Weston to Governor Carver was " full of complaints 
and expostulations about former passages at Southampton, 
and the keeping the ship so long in the country, and return- 
ing her without lading." Some expressions in that letter were 
characteristic of the writer's unfeeling selfishness: "That 
you sent no lading in the ship is wonderful, and worthily 
distasted. I know your weakness was the cause of it, and, I 
believe, more weakness of judgment than weakness of hands. 
A quarter of the time you spent in discoursing, arguing, and 

' " There was not so much as biscuit-cake or any other victuals for them ; 
neither had they any bedding but some sorry things they had in their cabins, 
nor pot nor pan to dress their meat in ; nor over-many clothes, for many of 
them had brushed away their coats and clo.iks at I'lymouth as they came. 
But there was sent over some Burcliin-lane suits [cheap ready-made cloth- 
ing], out of which they were supplied." — Bradford, p. 106. 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT" PLYMOUTH. 351 

consulting would have done mucli more ; but that is past." 
At the same time, he did not forget to make fresh promises, 
conditioned upon early and pl'ofitable returns: "Consider 
that the life of the business depends on the lading of this 
ship, which if you do to any good purpose, that I may be 
freed from the great sums I have disbursed for the former 
and must do for the latter, I promise you I will never quit 
the business though all the other Adventurers should." In 
other words, the cry of their friend Thomas Weston from the 
other side of the ocean was— Send fish, send beaver, send 
something that I can turn into money at a good profit, and 
I will stand by you; but unless you make my adventui-e a 
gainful one, you are weak in judgment, and good for nothing 
but to waste time in discoursing, arguing, and consulting. 

Of other letters that came by the Fortune, only one has 
been preserved, an official letter from Robinson to the church. 
It was in these words : 

"Jb the Church of God at Plymouth, in N'eio England : 

"Much beloved Brethren, — Neither the distance of 
place nor distinction of body can at all either dissolve or 
weaken that bond of true Christian affection in which the 
Lord, by his Spirit, hath tied us together. My continual pray- 
ers are to the Lord for you ; my most earnest desire is unto 
you, from whom I will not longer keep (if God will) than [till] 
means can be procured to bring with me the wives and chil- 
dren of divers of you, and the rest of your brethren, whom 
I could not leave behind me without great injury both to you 
and them, and offense to God and all men. The death of 
so many, our dear friends and brethren, oh ! how grievous 
hath it been to you to bear, and to us to take knowledge of; 
which, if it could be mended with lamenting, could not suf- 
ficiently be bewailed. But we must go unto them, and they 
shall not return unto us. And how many even of us God 
hath taken awny, here and in England, since your departure, 
you may elsewhere take knowledge. But the same God has 

A A 



352 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVT, 

tempered judgment with mercy — as otherwise, so in spai-ing 
the rest, especially those by whose godly and wise govern- 
ment you may be and (I kn<Tw) are so much helped.^ In a 
battle, it is not looked for but that divers should die ; it is 
thought well for a side if it get the victory, though with the 
loss of divers, if not too many or too great. God, I hope, 
hath given you the victory, after many difficulties, for your- 
selves and others ; though I doubt not but many do and will 
remain for you and us all to strive with. 

" Brethren, I hope I need not exhort you to obedience unto 
those whom God hath set over you in church and common- 
wealth, and to the Lord in them. It is a Christian's honor 
to give honor according to men's places ; and his liberty to 
serve God in faith and his brethren in love, orderly, and with 
a willing and free heart. God forbid I should need to ex- 
hort you to peace, which is the bond of perfection, and by 
which all good is tied together, and without which it is scat- 
tered. Have peace with God first, bj^ faith in his j^romises, 
good conscience kept in all things, and oft renewed by re- 
pentance ; and so one with another for His sake who is though 
three one, and for Christ's sake who is one, and as you are 
called by one Spirit to one hope. And the God of peace 
and grace and all goodness be with you, in all the fruits 
thereof, plenteously, upon your heads, now and forever. 

"All your brethren here remember you Avith great love, 
a general token whereof they have sent you. 

" Yours, ever in the Lord, John Robinson. 

"Leyden, Holland, June 30, anno 1G21." 

As a communication to the church from its pastor, the let- 
ter would naturally be read in the public assembly for wor- 
ship. Such assemblies the church had " every Sabbath," as 
those who came by the Fortune i-ejiorted to their friends in 



^ Robinson, when he wrote this letter (preserved in Bradford's Letter- 
Book), did not know that Carver was among the dead. 



A,D. 1621.] THE FIRST YEAR AT PLYMOUTH. 353 

England; and, though the pastor was still so far away, the 
congregation was not therefore without the preaching of the 
Word.^ That "exercise of prophesying" for which Robin- 
son contended 2 against those who held that preaching is ex- 
clusively the function of men ordained to govern in the 
church, was kept up at Plymouth. A sermon that was de- 
livered by Robert Cushraan on one of the three or four Sab- 
baths that occurred while the Fortune was taking in her re- 
turn cargo, was soon afterward printed in England, and it is 
the only extant specimen of the preaching which the Pil- 
grims listened to. If all the sermons which they heard in 
those early times were like Cushman's " On the sin and dan- 
ger of self-love," from the text, " Let no man seek his own, 
but every man another's wealth," they had no lack of jDracti- 
cal preaching.^ Their church, in its Sabbath assemblies, was 
a school of mutual instruction and edification. However 
they might miss their pastor's discourses, so rich in doctrine, 
and so illustrated with various learning, they did not neg- 
lect the assembling of themselves together, nor cease to help 
each other in the application of Christian principles and mo- 
tives to the exigencies of their condition. 

The Fortune sailed homeward on or soon after the fii'st an- 
niversary of the landing at Plymouth (Dec. 11 = 21). Brief 

' William Hilton, who, in 1G23, became one of the first settlers of Do- 
ver, in New Hampshire, was a passenger by the Fortune. He, in a letter 
written soon after his arrival, described the moral and religious aspect of 
Plymouth in these words : " Our company are, for most part, very religious, 
honest people ; the word of God [is] sincerely taught us every Sabbath." 

= Ante, p. 239. 

' The sermon — or so much of it as seemed to be of historic value — is found 
in Young, p. 256-258. Felt's "Ecclesiastical History of N. E." (i., 67) calls 
the author of it "Elder Cushman." Thomas Cushman, son of Robert, was 
chosen ruling elder after Brewster's death ; but Robert seems never to have 
held any office in the church. It is worth remembering that the first print- 
ed American sermon was preached against selfishness, applying Christian 
principles and motives to stimulate public spirit ; and that a non-profes- 
sional preacher — an active business man — was the author of it. 



354 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

as her stay had been, she sailed witli a freiglit of lumber 
and of beaver and other peltry, valued at " near five hundred 
pounds sterling." Cushnian, having- come out as a special 
agent for the Adventurers, went back to make his report, 
carrying with him the manuscript of his sermon. At last, 
yielding to his persuasion and to advice from Leyden, the 
colonists had accepted the hai'd conditions which they would 
not accept while in England, and it was now expected that 
the enterprise in which they had invested their all would be 
carried forward with more effectual co-operation from the 
Adventurers, and especially from Weston, who had promised 
so much. If we had, to-day, the entire contents of the For- 
tune's letter-bag on her return voyage, they would be deemed 
worth more than their weight in gold. Governor Brad- 
ford's reply to Weston's haivsh " complaints and expostula- 
tions " was among those letters, and is a beautiful example 
of Christian dignity in rebuke, "Your large letter written 
to Mr. Carver," said the Pilgrim governor, " I have received, 
. . . wherein (after the apology made for yourself) you lay 
many heavy imputations upon him and us all. Touching 
him, he is departed this life, and is now at rest in the Lord 
from all those troubles and incumbrances with which we are 
yet to strive. He needs not my apology; for his care and 
pains was so great for the common good, both ours and 
yours, as that therewith (it is thought) he oppressed himself 
and shortened his days. ... At great charges in tliis advent- 
ure, I confess you have been, and many losses may sustain ; 
but the loss of his and many other honest, and industrious 
men's lives can not be valued at any price. Of the one, 
there may be hope of recovery ; but the other no recompense 
can make good." 

The letter adverted to the blame which Weston imputed 
to them "for keeping the ship so long in the country, and 
then sending her away empty." It described, in a few tell- 
ing phrases, the events and circumstances which made the 
detention of the Mayflov:er inevitable: their "seeking out in 



A.D. 1621.] THE FIRST ^E^AR AT PLYMOUTH. u55 

the foul winter a place of habitation," " with many a weary 
step and the endurance of many a hard brunt;" their work 
"in so tedious a time" to provide shelter for themselves 
and their goods, a work so severe, and involving such expo- 
sures, that many of them were still bearing in their bodies 
the marks of it ; the visitation of God upon them " with 
death daily, and with so general a disease that the living 
were scarce able to bury the dead, and the well not in any 
measure sufficient to tend the sick" — particulars which Wes- 
ton already knew before he wrote his insulting complaints, 
"And now," said the governor, " to be so greatly blamed for 
not freighting the ship, doth indeed go near us, and much 
discourage us. But you say you know we will pretend weak- 
ness. And do you think we had not cause ? Yes, you tell 
us you believe it, but it was more weakness of judgment 
than of hands. Our weakness herein is great, we confess ; 
therefore we will bear this check patiently among the rest, 
till God send us wiser men." Then — touching ujDon the 
cruel charge that they had wasted "in discoursing, arguing, 
and consulting" the time in which they might have been at 
work for their masters the Adventurers — the pen struck fire, 
and the meek spirit of the Pilgrim blazed out in righteous 
indignation. Intimating that he knew or strongly suspect- 
ed whence the slander cajne, he said, with evident allusion 
to some of those who did not come from Leyden, but had 
been shuffled into their company in England : " They who 
told you, . . . their hearts can tell their tongues they lie. 
They cared not, so they might salve their own sores, how 
they wounded othei's. Indeed, it is our calamity that we are 
(beyond expectation) yoked with some ill-conditioned peo- 
ple, who will never do good, but corrupt and abuse others." 
The remainder of the letter was occupied with matters of 
business between the Adventurers and the colony. Among 
other things, it insisted on the necessity of sending a time- 
ly supply of provisions, because otherwise the reinforcement 
" would bring famine on them unavoidably." It closed with 



356 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVI. 

the hope that, inasmuch as the controversy about the condi- 
tions of their partnership had been terminated by the submis- 
sion of the Planters to the demands of the Adventurers, of- 
fenses would be forgotten, and Weston would remember his 
promise to stand by them. 

As soon as the Fortune had been supplied with food for 
her voyage and dispatched homeward, the thirty-five "new- 
comers" were distributed into families, and a careful inven- 
tory was made of the provisions remaining for the sustenance 
of the colony. It was found that, with the increased num- 
ber of consumers, there was only half a supply for six months. 
" So they were presentl}^ put to half allowance, one as well 
as another — which began to be hard ; but they bore it pa- 
tiently under hope of supply." 

The winter solstice had passed ; the days were beginning 
to lengthen ; a year had been completed since they " began 
to erect the first house for common use" (Dec. 25z=Jan. 4). 
One incident of that anniversary is narrated by Bradford as 
"rather of mirth than of weight." The story, in his quaint 
words, is too picturesque, and too characteristic of the Pil- 
grims, their governor, and the " new-comers," to be lost : " On 
the day called Christmas-day, the governor called them out 
to work, as was used ; but the most of this ne\v company ex- 
cused themselves, and said it went against their consciences 
to work on that day. So the governor told them that, if they 
made it matter of conscience, he would spare them till they 
were better informed. So he led away the rest and left 
them ; but when they came home at noon from their work, 
he found them in the street at play, openly — some pitching 
the bar, and some at stool-ball, and such like sports. So he 
went to them and took away their implements, and told them 
that was against his conscience, that they should play and 
others work. If they made the keeping of it matter of de- 
votion, let them keep their houses ; but there should be no 
gaming or reveling in the streets. Since which time nothing 
hath been attempted that way, at least openly," 



A.D. 1622.] ADVERSITY AND PROGBESS. 357 



CHAPTER XYII. 

ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. WESTON's COLONY, AND WHAT 

CAME OF IT. 

The second year of the colony at Plymouth, and the third, 
brought no such sorrow as that of the first winter. Yet 
they Avere years of j)eril and of suffering. 

While the Pilgrims were on good terms with their neigh- 
bor Massasoit, and with all the Indians under his authority, 
they had not been able to enter into similar relations with 
Canonicus, the sachem of a much more powerful nation. The 
Narragansets, inhabiting nearly all the territory now in- 
cluded in the State of Rhode Island, are supposed to have 
been at that time about tliirty thousand, for they had been 
strangely spared by the pestilence which had wasted other 
tribes. It was natural for them to be jealous of the advan- 
tages which their neighbors under Massasoit were likely to 
gain from alliance and intercoiirse with the English ; and it 
began to be reported that they were preparing for an attack 
on Plymouth. They knew, indeed, that the colony had been 
reinforced, but they knew also that the men who came by the 
Fortune had brought neither arms nor provisions. 

After not many days, there came into the village a mes- 
senger from the Narragansets (Jan., 1622), whose message 
Governor Bradford and Assistant Allerton, in the absence of 
their interpreter, were able to understand only in part. He 
brought a bundle of new arrows tied up in a rattlesnake's 
skin, and, having intimated that the suspicious gift was for 
Squanto, he "desired to depart with all expedition." From 
a friendly and faithful Indian who was wath him, they could 
learn no more than what they must have inferred without 
his aid, namely, that the symbol meant mischief. The mes- 



358 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

senger was committed to the custody of Captain Standish, to 
be detained till his message could be more distinctly under- 
stood and answered. After a night's detention, he was set at 
liberty, as being under the protection of " the law of arms." 
He was charged " to certify his master that the governor had 
heard of his large and many threatenings, and was much of- 
fended ;" to tell him that, " if he would not be reconciled to 
live peaceably," the governor " dared him to the utmost;" 
and to assure him that the Englishmen at Plymouth, though 
not at all afraid of him, were desirous of peace Avith him as 
with all men. All this was while Squanto was absent. On 
his return, he informed the governor " that to send the rattle- 
snake's skin in that manner imported enmity, and that it was 
no better than a challenge." After some consultation with 
the assistant, the captain, and perhaps others, " the governor 
stuffed the skin with powder and shot, and sent it back, re- 
turning no less defiance to Canonicus, assuring him that if 
he had shipping now present, thereby to send his men to 
Narraganset, they would not need to come so far by land 
to us ; yet withal showing that they should never come un- 
welcome or unlooked for." An Indian was found who con- 
sented to be the bearer of the message with the stuffed snake- 
skin ; and so well did he perform liis task that the Nai'ragan- 
set king was not disposed to maintain his challenge. "He 
would not once touch the powder and shot, nor suffer it to 
remain in his country." The terrible symbol was sent from 
place to place, till it came back to Plymouth in good condition. 
Meanwhile all hands were busy with preparations for de- 
fense. Bradford and his associates, " notwithstanding [their] 
high words and lofty looks" toward those who threatened 
them, knew the weakness of the colony, and what skill they 
had in military engineering was put in requisition. By 
thirty or forty days of united labor, the village was inclosed 
(Feb.) with a stockade, having "flankers in convenient 
places, with gates to shut, which were every night locked, 
and a watch kept, and, when, need required, there was also 



A.D. 1622.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 359 

Avarcliiig in the daytime." Every man under the captain had 
his immediate commander, and knew the point to wliich he 
must instantly repair in case of an alarm. In such insecurity 
were they night and day. The entire force to defend that 
outpost of civilization against uncounted hordes of savages 
was, at the utmost, not more than fifty men and boys, in- 
cluding all who had lately come by the Fortune. Keeping 
watch by night and ward by day, on their half-rations, no 
man of them sleeping but with his weapons beside him ready 
for battle, theirs must have been a stalwart faith if they 
could sing, "The Lord is my Shepherd," unfialteringly in 
Ainsworth's uncouth verse : 

"Jehovah feedeth me, I shall not lack. 

Ill grassy folds he down doth make me lie : 
He gently leads me quiet waters by. 
He doth return my soul : For his name's sake, 
In paths of justice leads me quietly. 

"Yea, though I walk in dale of deadly shade, 
I'll fear none ill : For with me thou wilt be : 
Thy rod, thy staff eke, they shall comfort me. 
'Fore me a table thou hast ready made 
In their presence that my distressers be." 

Amid such anxieties, the question was raised whether it 
would be safe for them to weaken their power of self-defense 
by sending out a trading expedition which they had planned, 
and which the Indians around Boston harbor were expecting. 
Bradford, Allerton, and Standish (the governor, the assistant, 
and the captain), held a consultation (March) with other 
principal men, and their conclusion was that, " as hitljerto, 
upon all occasions," they " had manifested undaunted cour- 
age and resolution," so in these circumstances no other policy 
would be safe. Their storehouse was almost empty, and un- 
less they could obtain food by traffic they must soon perish ; 
nor could they shut themselves up in their fortification with- 
out exposing at once their weakness and their fear. " There- 
fore," said they, " we thought best to proceed in oar trading 



360 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII, 

voyage, making this use of that we heard" about hostile in- 
tentions on the part of the savages, " to go the better pro- 
vided, and use the more carefuhiess both at home and abroad, 
leaving the event to the disj)Osiug of the Almighty. As his 
providence had hitherto been over us for good, so we had 
now no cause (save our sins) to despair of his mercy in our 
preservation and continuance, while we desired rather to be 
instruments of good to the heathen about us than to give 
them the least measure of just offense." 

Just at this time their confidence in Squanto was shaken ; 
for the temptations incident to his position seemed to have 
overpowered him. They found reason to believe that, among 
his fellow-savages, he was pretending to have unbounded in- 
fluence over the English, and under that pretense was taking- 
bribes (perhaps he would have preferred to say fees) to avert 
the hostility or to conciliate the favor of the growing power 
at Plymouth. The exposure of his practices made him de- 
pendent on them for his personal safety ; for it brought upon 
him the wrath and life-long hatred of Massasoit. He dared 
not desert them, and they allowed him to remain among 
them. But in the mean time the)'' had already taken under 
their patronage another Indian, Hobbamoc, whom they found 
faithful in their service, and who was esj)ecially useful as a 
check upon Squanto. If at any time they distrusted what 
one of them said, they could hear the testimony of the other, 
and could require that at the mouth of two witnesses every 
word should be established. Poor Squanto lived only a few 
months after the exposure of his duplicity. He died, " de- 
siring the governor to pray for him that he might go to the 
Englishmen's God in heaven, and bequeathed sundry of his 
things to sundry of his English friends as remembrances of 
his love." Hobbamoc lived several years among the Pilgrims, 
and seems to have received an allotment of land in their 
township. After his death, he was held in affectionate re- 
membrance. When his memory had not yet passed into tra- 
dition, it was said of him : "As he increased in knowledge, so 



A.D. 1622.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 361 

in affection and also in practice, reforming and conforming 
himself accordingly ; and though he was much tempted by 
enticements, scoffs, and scorns from the Indians, yet could he 
never be gotten from the English, nor from seeking after 
their God, but died among them, leaving some good hopes in 
their hearts that his soul went to rest." 

In the early summer, when the supply of provisions was 
failing, and stark famine was beginning to pinch the company 
at Plymouth, they were one day startled by the sight of a 
sail-boat coming into their 'harbor (June). The boat proved 
to be a shallop from the Sjjarroio, a vessel which Weston and 
another of the Adventurers had sent to the coast of Maine 
for a fishing voyage on their private account. Any hope of 
relief which the sight of an English sail might have awakened 
was soon dispelled, for " this boat," says Bradford, " brought 
seven passengers and some letters, but no victuals, nor any 
promise of any." The Sparrow had sailed from England be- 
fore any intelligence of the Fortune had been received there, 
and the lettei's which she brought gave to the governor such 
views of what might be expected from Weston, and of dis- 
cord and mutual antipathy among the Adventurers, that he 
dared not communicate the discouraging information save to 
the few in whom he could most safely confide. Weston was 
proposing to withdraw from the partnership ; and though he 
reiterated his professions of friendship, he and his associate 
werp intending to send out a colony which should be their 
own, and of which these seven passengers were to be the 
pioneers. He complained that " the parsimony of the Ad- 
venturers," overruling his genei'ous intentions, was the rea- 
son why the emigrants by the Fortune were so ill provided 
with necessaries, and that the same parsimony was keeping 
back the "supply of men and provisions" which, without 
waiting for her return, he had been soliciting for the colony. 
He, therefore, and those who were of his faction among the 
Adventurers, invited the Planters Xo unite with them in de- 
manding that the partnership should be dissolved immediate- 



362 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII, 

ly by general consent, and its assets divided among the share- 
holders. Bradford and the friends whom he consulted were 
alarmed at these schemes of "Weston's. They thought they 
saw the reason why the men whom he sent by the Fortune 
Avere what they were, and that some of them had been sent 
in the expectation of their deserting Plymouth when the time 
should come for beginning his intended plantation. Once 
they had trusted that man, believing in their simplicity that 
he had some sympathy witli their enterprise ; but now it was 
plain to them that, all the while, he had only been using them 
for his own advantage, and that he intended so to use them 
still, whatever tlie cost might be to them. "Well might it 
make them remember what the Psalmist saith : ' It is better 
to trust in the Lord than to have confidence in man ;' and 
'Put not your trust in princes' — much less in the merchants 
— 'nor in the son of man, for there is no help in them;' 
'Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose 
hope is in the Lord his God.'"^ 

What were they to do? Sliould they shut their doors 
against the seven men who had been kept fishing in Wes- 
ton's service " till planting-time Avas over," and had now come 
to demand their hospitality ? They took in the strangers, 
who " might have starved if the plantation had not succored 
them ;" and, day by day till the harvest came, those seven, 
who had never done or suffered any thing for the colony, 
shared equally with the best and most honored in the, dis- 
tribution of food from the common stock. Winslow, under 
orders from the governor, and in a boat belonging to the 
colony, accompanied the shallop on its return to the eastern 
fishing-grounds, where the Sparroio was only one of about 
thirty vessels employed in the same business. He found a 
kind reception among his countrymen there, and came back 
with a boat-load of provisions freely contributed by them for 
the suffering colony. With this new supply, the daily allow- 

' Psa. cxviii., 8 ; cxlvi., 3, 5. — Geneva Version. 



A.D. 1622.] ADVERSITY AND PEOGEESS. 363 

ance of bread was only a quarter of a pound to each person ; 
but inadequate as the relief was, it enabled the colony to live 
till harvest. The colony storehouse seems to have been, 
while Winslow was absent, and we know not how long before, 
entirely destitute of bread and bread-stuifs. "I returned 
home," he says, " with all speed convenient, and found the 
state of the colony much weaker than when I left it; for till 
now we were never without some bread, the want whereof 
much abated the strength and flesh of some, and swelled 
others." "Had we not been in a place where divers sorts of 
shell-fish are that may be taken with the hand, we must have 
perished."^ 

It was evident that the Indians knew how weak the col- 
ony had become ; and that the Narragansets, especially, were 
thinking how soon it would be easy to cut oiF the starv- 
ing remnant. Massasoit himself seemed to be losing his re- 
spect for his English allies. "These things occasioned further 
thoughts of fortification." Part of "the Mount," now known 
as Burial Hill, was within the stockade which inclosed the 
village. On that height the Pilgrims, in their weakness, 
" built a fort with good timber both strong and comely, . . . 
made with a flat roof and battlements, on which their ord- 
nance were mounted, and where they kept constant watch — 
especially in time of danger." " This work," says Winslow, 
" was begun with great eagerness and with the approbation 
of all men, hoping that this being once finished, and a con- 
tinual guard there kept, it would utterly discourage the sav- 

' Winslow gives this explanation. "It may be said, if tlie conntry abound 
with fish and fowl in such measure as is reported, how could men undergo 
such measure of hardness, except through their own negligence? I answer, 
every thing must be expected in its proper season. No man, as one saith, 
will go into an orchard in the winter to gather cherries ; so he who looks for 
fowl there in the summer will be deceived in his expectation." ... "I con- 
fess that as the fowl decrease, so fish increase;" . . . but, "though our bay 
and creeks were full of bass and other fish, yet for want of fit and strong 
seines and other netting, they for the most part broke through and carried 
all away before them." — ^Winslow's "Relation," in Young, p. 294. 



364 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CIIUECHES. [CH. XYII. 

ages from having any hoj^es or thoughts of rising against us." 
Labor that could not well be spared from their fields of In- 
dian corn was expended on this building. "It was a great 
work for them in this weakness and time of wants," says 
Bradford ; " but the danger of the time required it ;" and not 
only the rumors of " insulting speeches " by the savages in the 
surrounding regions, but " also the hearing of that great mas- 
sacre in Virginia, made all hands willing to dispatch the 
same." ^ This fortress "served them also for a meeting- 
house." Their citadel was their temjile.'-^ 

While they were busy in this work — so great in comparison 
with their strength — two more of Weston's vessels (the Char- 
ity and the Swan) arrived (July), but brought them no relief 
nor any good news. The Fortune, on her return voyage, 
had been captured and plundered by Frenchmen, and that 
was the end of the five hundred pounds' w^orth of beaver and 
other merchandise with which she had been freighted by the 
colony. Fifty or sixty men, employed by Weston in his en- 
terprise of making a new jDlantation, came in those vessels, 
expecting to find hospitality in Plymouth. The larger ves- 
sel, after landing those of her passengers whom he had sent 
on his business, proceeded on her voyage to Virginia; the 
other, of only sixty tons, was to remain for the service of his 
plantation — as the Speedxoell, two years before, would have 
remained for the service of the Pilgrim colony, had she come 
safely with the Mayfloioer. How to deal with Weston's men 

^ The "great massacre" which, in the night of March 22, 1622, struck ter- 
ror through the Virginia colony, and in which about three hundred and fifty 
English people were killed, had just been reported at Plymouth, and was 
reason enough why the people there should strengthen their defenses, even 
at the expense of their corn-fields. 

^ The building is thus described by a Dutchman who visited Plj'moutli 
from New Amsterdam in 1G27: "Upon the hill, they have a large square 
house, with a flat roof, made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak beams ; 
upon the top of which they have six cannons, which shoot iron balls of four 
or five pounds, and command the surrounding country. The lower part they 
use for their church." 



A.D. 1622.] Weston's colony. . 365 

was a perplexing question. Letters that came with them 
gave new ilhisti-atious of his treachery, and of the quarrel 
between him and some of the other Adventurers. He was 
no longer connected with the enterprise, for the company 
had bought him out, and thought they were well rid of him; 
but, in his letter to Bradford, he was still intent on a disso- 
lution of the partnership, repeating and urging his advice to 
that eifect, with professions of disinterested friendship, and 
with malicious accusations against his late associates. On 
the other hand, a letter from two of the Adventurers, Picker- 
ing and Greene — a letter designed to be secret, but betrayed 
to Weston, and then forwarded by him with his commentary 
annexed — warned Bradford and Brewster against his designs. 
They alleged that he would permit no letters to be sent by 
his ships. He replied that he had invited them to send both 
letters and victuals. But why was there no communication 
from Cushman, their fellow-pilgrim? He had always been 
on good terms with Weston, and had trusted him. Why did 
he not himself report to them the ill success of his voyage 
in the Fortune f While they were wondering at this, a let- 
ter, addressed on the outside as from a wife in England to 
her husband in the colony, had been opened by the husband, 
and found to be a communication from Cushman to the gov- 
ernor. It was accordingly delivered to Bradford ; and the 
fact of its having been sent under that disguise was proof 
that the writer agreed with Pickering and Greene in their 
opinion of Weston. After mentioning the capture of the 
Fortune, and that their friends did not seem to be discour- 
aged, he said : " I purpose, by God's grace, to see you short- 
ly, I hope in June next, or before. In the mean space know 
these things, and I pray you to be advertised a little. Mr. 
Weston hath quite broken oft' from our Company, through 
some discontents that arose betwixt him and some of our 
Adventurers, and hath sold all his adventures, and hath now 
sent three small ships for his particular plantntion. . , . The 
people which they carry are no men for us, wherefore, I pray 



366 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CIIUECHES. [cH. XVII, 

you, entertain them not, neither excliange man for man witli 
them, except it be some of your worst. ... If they offer to 
buy any thing of you, let it be such as you can spare, and 
let them give the worth of it. If they borrow any thing of 
you, let them leave a good pawn. ... I fear these people 
will hardly deal so well with the savages as they should. I 
pray you therefore signify to Squanto that they are a dis- 
tinct body from us, and that we have nothing to do with 
them, neither must be blamed for tlieir faults, much less can 
warrant their fidelity." Cushman was a sanguine hoper, or 
he would not have added, so confidently, " We are about to 
recover our losses in France " — a prediction which, like his 
purpose to visit Plymouth that summer — does not seem to 
have been fulfilled. In the same cheerful and hopeful spirit 
he closed his letter. "Our friends at Leyden are well, and 
will come to you as many as can this time. I hope all will 
turn to the best; wherefore I pray you be not discouraged, 
but gather up yourself to go through these difficulties cheer- 
fully and with courage in that place wherein God hath set 
you, until the day of refreshing come. And the Lord God 
of sea and land bring us comfortably together again, if it 
may stand with his glory." 

The letter was indorsed with a few lines from John Pierce, 
a friend of theirs, in whose name the patent obtained for the 
colony from "the Governor and Council of New England" 
had been taken out. "I desire you to take into considera- 
tion that which is written on the other side, and not in any 
way to damnify your own colony, whose strength is but 
weakness, and may thereby be more enfeebled. ... As for 
Mr. Weston's company, I think them so base in condition, 
for the most part, as in all appearance not fit for an honest 
man's company. I wish they may prove otherwise." 

What the men were who swayed the little comiuunity at 
Plymouth, and what their religion was, appears in the fact 
that with so full a revelation of Weston's plans, and with 
such warning against the men, concerning whom he had him- 



A.D. 1622,] Weston's COLONY. 367 

self confessed that many of thera were "rude fellows," they 
" concluded to give his men friendly entertainment." They 
were unwilling to forget what he had formerly done for 
them, and that some of them were under particular obliga- 
tions of gratitude to him. At the same time they could not 
but pity " the people who were now come into a wilderness 
and were presently to be put ashore," altogether unacquainted 
with what was before them and ignorant what to do. Those 
"rude fellows" bore no such resemblance to Christ as would 
make them his " brethren," yet they were " strangers" thrown 
upon the hospitality of an impoverished but Christian com- 
munity, and they were taken in. It was a generous magna- 
nimity toward Weston, and a rare charity toward his worth- 
less gang, when the Plymouth people, instead of bidding 
them shift for themselves, received them hospitably, gave 
them shelter for their persons and their goods, and succored 
the many of them who were sick with " the best means the 
place afforded." Fortunately these new guests were not des- 
titute of food, as the seven were who came by the ^parroio, 
and whom the colony had received to share in its scanty 
supply. But of the provision brought by the Charity and 
the Sican for Weston's men, Plymouth received nothing. 
While some of the most capable were exploring to find a 
place for the intended plantation, the others waited for the 
result till the end of summer. They made some show of 
service in the corn-fields ; but there they were more mischiev- 
ous than vermin, stealing the unripe ears at night, and even 
in the daytime, and so destroying the harvest for which oth- 
ers had labored. After some exploration, a place called by 
the natives Wessagusset — now known as Weymouth, near 
Boston — was selected for Weston's plantation ; and as many 
of his men as were deemed fit for service went to begin their 
work. The story of the hospitality shown by the Pilgrims 
to those disagreeable guests is not fairly told without add- 
ing that the invalids of Weston's company — the " sick and 
lame " — were left at Plymouth bv permission from the gov- 

B B ' 



1568 (iKNKSIS OK rilli: NKW ICNCLAND CIIUJICIIKS. [(^11. XVII. 

crnoi", and locoived gratuitously the l)c'st ine(lical troatuicMit 
the colony could j^ivc, till accouiuiodations were provided 
for tliein at Wessa^usset. Nothing was received in return 
lor all this hos|)itality. Nothing was desired; for evidently 
the strangers " were an uniiily company, and had no good 
government over them, and would soon I'all into wants," and 
it was wiser to treat them as beggars dependent on charity 
than to deal with them as equals. 

The longed-for time of harvest was aj)])roaching. Sixty 
acres had been planted with Indian corn — the only grain 
which the colony attempted to raise that year; and it had 
been expected that the yield from that planting would be a 
sufficient supply. But so imperfect was the crop — partly 
through the iiuwperience of the cultivators, partly by defi- 
ciency of strength for the necessary work in the fields, and 
partly because thieves (not only Weston's men but some of 
their own) had stolen the unripe ears — that the prospect of 
food for another winter was discouraging. "Markets there 
were none to go to, but only Indians;" and the colony had 
nothing to spare which the Indians would purchase with 
corn. At that crisis, the religious spirit of Bradford and his 
brethren saw, in the relief that came to them, the providence 
of God, who feeds the ravens and much more his own chil- 
dren. Some English merchants had sent out a vessel — the 
Discovery — to explore the New England coast and observe 
its harbors ; and it was a glad day at Plymouth (Aug.) when 
she arrived there. Fi-om lier commander they obtained such 
provisions as they most needed and lie could best spare, and, 
what was of more importance to them, a sup])]y of commod- 
ities for their trade with the Indians; but he was careful to 
have a good bargain. "As he used us kindly," says Wins- 
low, " so he mad(^ us pay largidy." They exchanged with 
him "coat beaver" at the lowest price for cheap knives and 
beads at the highest pi-ice; but "by this means they were 
fitted again to trade for beaver and other things." They 
were well aware that savage industry j)ro(buH'd little else 



A.I>. 1622.] WESTOn'h COLONY. 369 

tlian peltry for any niaikot ; but tlicy " ijitoiiflod to buy w}iat 
corn tli(;y could." 

Tlic anticipations of the Plymouth governor in regard to 
Weston's men Vjegan to be I'eali/.ed very soon. "'I'hey Jiud 
not l>een long from us," says Winslow, " ere tlie Indians fill- 
ed our ears with clamors against them for stealing their corn 
and other abuses." Such clamors were the more ominous of 
evil Ijecause they came from Indians who liad desired to have 
more intimate I'elations with the white men. Unfortunately 
for tlie complainants, jiradford liad no jurisdiction over the 
men of Wessagusset. So long as they were at Plymouth, 
they were under his government; and the stripes indicted 
on some of them for stealing corn from the field were a tes- 
timony to them that the Pilgrim magistrate did not bear the 
sword in vain. Jiut after their removal to tlieir own planta- 
tion, he could only remonsti'ate with them arid advise them. 
The men whom Weston had thought fit for the work of plant- 
ing a colony that should be more prosperous than Plymouth 
— men unaccustomed to regard the moral quality and the 
ulterior consequences of their actions — could not be restrain- 
ed without something more potent than remonstrance and 
advice. Little thought would they give to the ai-gument 
that their savage neighbors, if thus wronged, would soon be- 
come implacable and dangerous enemies. 

After a little while the results of their recklessness began 
to appear in another direction. Instead of husbanding their 
supply of food, they had wasted it and were beginning to be in 
want. Richard Greene, Weston's brother-in-law, and in his 
behalf the overseer and governor of his plantation, having 
learned that the Plymouth people had obtained means for 
purchasing corn of the Indians, proposed to join them, and 
offered the Sparroio for that service (Oct.). Conditions of 
partnership were agreed upon ; for it was obviously better 
to have even so slight a check on the jjroceedings of his peo- 
ple than to let them operate entirely at their own discretion. 
Two short voyages were made along the coast ; one under 



370 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

the' personal direction of Governor Bradford, the otlier com- 
manded by Captain Standish, and supplies of Indian corn 
were obtained, to be divided between the two colonies. 
Bradford and Standish made also some journeys by land to 
purchase more corn for Plymouth. 

But the winter had not gone by when there came to Plym- 
outh a messenger with a letter from Sanders (March, 1623), 
who, by the death of Greene, had been left in command at 
Wessagusset. The plantation there being in want, Sanders 
had in vain attempted to borrow coi-n of his Indian neigh- 
bors, and he desired Bradford's advice whether he might not 
take from them by force enough to feed his people in his ab- 
sence, for he was going eastward to procure supplies. Imme- 
diately the governor and his assistant held a consultation 
with the principal men of Plymouth. The result was a let- 
ter by Bradford, which they all subscribed, and of which 
Winslow gives a summary too characteristic of the men to 
be left out of our story. The contents were to this pur- 
pose : 

" We altogether disliked their purpose as being against 
the law of God and nature. We showed them how it would 
cross the worthy ends and proceedings of the king's majesty 
and of his honorable council for this place, both in respect of 
the peaceable enlarging of his majesty's dominions, and also 
of the propagation of the knowledge and law of God and the 
glad tidings of salvation, which we and they were bound to 
seek. . . . We assured them their master would incur much 
blame hereby, neither could they answer the same. For our 
own parts, our case was almost the same with theirs. We 
had but a small quantity of corn left, and were enforced to 
live on ground-nuts, clams, muscles, and such other things as 
naturally the country afforded, and which would maintain 
strength and were easy to be gotten — all which things they 
had in great abundance ; yea, oysters also, which we want- 
ed. Therefore necessity could not be said to constrain them. 
Moreover, they should consider that, if they proceeded thei-e- 



A.D. 1623.] aveston's colony. 371 

ill, all they could so get would maintaiu them but a small 
time, and then they must perforce seek their food abroad, 
which would be very difficult for them, having made the In- 
dians their enemies. Therefore it would be much better to 
begin a little sooner, and so continue their peace — upon 
which course they might with good conscience desire and 
expect the blessing of God. 

"Also (we told them) that they should consider their own 
weakness — the effect of disease — and that they should not 
expect help from us in that or any the like unlawful actions. 
Lastly, that however some of them might escape, yet the 
principal agents should expect no better than the. gallows, 
whenever any special officer should be sent over by his maj- 
esty or his council for New England (which we expected), 
who would undoubtedly call them to account for the same." 

This letter, subscribed by the leading men of Plymouth, 
was directed to the whole company at Wessagusset. At 
the same time the governor addressed a special and personal 
letter to Sanders, advising him to desist from the proposed 
robbery, and warning him that it would be dangerous for 
him above the rest, inasmuch as he was their leader and 
commander. With such replies the Indian messenger — prob- 
ably as unconscious of his errand, either way, as the wires 
over which messages pass in these days — returned to those 
who had sent him. The appeal to their fears was so far suc- 
cessful that they I'eceded from their purpose, and concluded 
to live after the Plymouth fashion till Sanders should return 
from his eastward expedition. But he could not fit out even 
a shallop for that voyage without first coming to Plymouth, 
where Bradford, from their scanty store, supplied him with 
corn to feed his boat's crew. 

Such a company of runagates as Weston had sent over 
could not but breed, sooner or later, a conspiracy of the sav- 
ages against the English. The experience of two hundred 
and fifty years, since that time, has shown that on whatever 
frontier reckless and half-savage white men come into com- 



372 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

munication with savage red men, whom they teach at once 
to hate them and to despise them, "Indian hostilities" are 
the consequence, and that the Indian in taking vengeance 
rarely discriminates between one sort of white men and an- 
other. Bradford tells how it was that Weston's people were 
distressed so soon,though the ship had left them " competent- 
ly jDrovided," and though they had their half of the corn 
purchased of the Indians, besides what they obtained of the 
natives in their vicinity. He says that they "spent exces- 
sively" whatever they had or could get. He intimates that 
they "wasted part among the Indians" in a way which he 
suggests by declining to vouch for the story which some of 
them told about what " he that was tlieir chief" expended 
in his relations with Indian women. After they began to be 
in want, many of them sold their garments and bedding; 
others became servants to the Indians — hewers of wood and 
bearers of water "for a cap-full of corn ;" others "fell to 
j)lain stealing " from their savage neighbors. " In the end, 
they came to that misery that some starved and died with 
cold and hunger." In that misery "most of -them left their 
dwellings and scattered up and down in the woods and by 
the water-side, where they could find ground-nuts and clams." 
All this while the Indians were learning to despise and scorn 
them, even to the extent of insulting them, and now and then 
robbing them of food or of "a sorry blanket" by main 
strength. Such was the distress which they proposed to re- 
lieve by plundering the corn-heaps of the more provident 
savages around them ; and that design of theirs, though they 
were dissuaded from it, was by some of them betrayed to 
those who were to have been the victims. After all this, 
what else than " a conspiracy against the English " could be 
expected of the Indians'? 

Meanwhile the vigilance of Standish and other Plymouth 
men had already discovered that some, at least, of the sav- 
ages, at no great distance from them, were becoming hostile, 
and were planning mischief Just then (March) the news 




^--Zufnt^U-C 



1V. 






A.D. 1623,] AVHAT CAME OF WESTON's COLONY. 373 

came that their friend Massasoit was sick and likely to die. 
Wiuslow was sent by the governoi" to visit him, for it was 
"a commendable manner of the Indians" to visit a friend in 
that extremity. Accompanied by a friend from London,' 
who had wintered in the colony, and was desirous of seeing 
more of the country, and with Hobbamoc for guide and in- 
terpreter, he undertook the journey. On their way, they 
were told once and again that their friend was dead. But 
when they arrived at Pokanoket, they found him still alive, 
though his sight had failed, and he seemed very near to 
death. The house was full of Indians in the midst of their 
incantations for him, "making," says Winslow, " such a hell- 
ish noise as distempered us that were well, and was there- 
fore unlikely to ease him that was sick." Six or eight wom- 
en were chafing the patient's limbs " to keep heat in him." 
When an interval of comparative silence had been obtained, 
he was told that his friends the English had come to see 
him. He was sufficiently conscious to ask, " Who ?" They 
told him " Winsnow ;" ^ and he desired to speak with his En- 
glish friend. " When I came to him," says that friend, " and 
they told him of it, he put forth his hand to me, which I 
took. Then he said twice, though very inwardly, ' Keen 
Winsnow f which is to say, 'Art thou Winslow?' I an- 
swered, '■ Ahhe^ that is, 'Yes.' Then he doubled these 
Avords, '■Malta neen v:onclianet namen, Winsnoio P that is to 
say, ' Oh, Winslow, I shall never see thee again.' " With the 
aid of Hobbamoc, Winslow told him that the governor, be- 
ing unable to come in person, had sent him with such things 
as might do good to one in such extremity. What medical 

' " One Master John Hamden, a gentleman of London," has been thought 
by some to be identical with the illustrious patriot, John Hampden. But, 
aside from the similarity of the names, there is no reason to believe that the 
" gentleman of London " was the Hampden who makes so great a figure in 
English history. See Young, p. 314, 315. 

^ "For they can not pronounce the letter /, but ordinarily n in the place 
thereof" — Winslow, in Young, p. 318. 



oT-t GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

virtue there was in the "confection of many comfortable 
conserves " which he had brought, we know not ; but Avith 
some difficulty he succeeded in administering a little of it, 
and soon he had the satisfaction of seeing his patient some- 
what relieved. By his assiduous and ingenious nursing, add- 
ed to the efficacy of the "confection," the recovery was in a 
few hours decided, though not yet complete. " With admi- 
ration,"' Winslow and his English friend "blessed God for 
o-iving his blessing to such raw and ignorant means," the 
sachem and all his Indian friends "acknowledging them as 
the instruments of his preservation."' 

Something of nobleness in the nature of the savage showed 
itself when he began to know that he was recovering. His 
iirst thought was of others needing similar relief, and he de- 
sired the kind friend, who liad saved his life, to go from one 
to another of the sick throughout the village, and to give 
them the bejiefit of his healing skill ; for, he said, "they were 
good folk," and worth caring for. At the same time he was 
profuse in the expression of iiis gratitude. He had been told 
the day before Winslow came, "You see how hollow-hearted 
your English friends are; had they been what they pretend 
to be, they would have visited you in your sickness." Ke- 
membering this, he said, repeating it often, "Xow I see tlie 
English are my friends, and love me. . . . While I live, 1 
will never forget this kindness." When his visitors, after 
two days, were ready to depart, he revealed to Hobbamoc, in 
the presence of onl}'- two or three trusty counselors, the 
whole story of a plot to destroy the English — how it began 
with the Massachusetts near Weston's colony — how the peo- 
ple of Nauset, Paomet, and other places had joined in the 
conspiracy — how he himself had been solicited and argued 
with — how the Massachusetts, having determined to exter- 
minate Weston's colony, and not doubting their ability to do 
so, had considered that the men of Plymouth would be like- 
ly to take vengeance on them, and were postponing the exe- 
cution of their purpose only till the conspiracy should be 



A..D. 1623.] AVIIAT CAME OF WESTOn's COLONY, 375 

wide enough to annihilate Plymouth also. He therefore 
charged Ilobbotnoc not only to make his English friends ac- 
quainted with these facts, but also to advise them, as from 
him, that if they regarded the lives of their countrymen or 
their own safety, they must act promptly, and must prevent 
the intended massacre by ])utting the chief conspirators to 
death. Hobbamoc communicated all this to Winslow as 
they were returning to Plymouth, and to Bradford immedi- 
ately after their arrival. Information of the conspiracy came 
at the same time from another source. What was to be 
done ? 

It was the time for the annual town-meeting or legislative 
assembly. To that assembly (March 23= April 2) the gov- 
ernor, " having a double testimony and many circumstances 
agreeing with the truth thereof," communicated the alarm- 
ing intelligence. "This business was no less troublesome 
than grievous" (such is Winslow's account of the meeting), 
"especially for that we knew no means to deliver our coun- 
trymen and preserve ourselves save by returning the mali- 
cious and cruel purposes " of the conspirators " upon their own 
heads, and causing them to fall into the same pit they had 
digged for others ; though it much grieved us to shed the 
blood of those whose good we ever intended and aimed at, 
as a principal [object] in all our proceedings." The conclu- 
sion was that, inasmuch as prompt action was required, and 
the measures to be taken for the salvation of the colony must 
by no means be divulged among the Indians who Avere daily 
coming and going, the governor, the assistant, and the cap- 
tain, consulting with others at their discretion, were author- 
ized to take care that the commonwealth should receive no 
detriment. 

By that triumvirate it was determined that Standish should 
take "so many men as he thought sufficient" for the occa- 
sion, and, going to Wessagusset as if on a trading expedi- 
tion, should first communicate with Weston's men and ascer- 
tain what they knew concerning the conspiracy, so that " he 



376 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XVII. 

might the better judge the certainty of it," and might be 
ready for any opportunity of punishing the authors of it. It 
was well known that one chief instigator of the plot was 
Wituwamat, of the Massachuset tribe, " a notable insulting 
villain, who had formerly imbrued his hands in the blood 
of English and French, and had oft boasted of his own valor 
and derided their weakness, especially because, as he said, 
they died crying, making sour faces, more like children than 
men." It was therefore determined that the captain, after 
ascertaining by inquiry at Wessagusset the inevitableness of 
a conflict, " should forbear, if it were possible, till he could 
make sure of that bloody and bold villain — whose head he 
had order to bring with him, that he might be a warning and 
terror to all of that disposition." 

Standish, Avithout delay, made ready for the expedition, 
selecting eight men, who, he thought, would be a sufiicient 
force. But the next day, before they could sail, a fugitive, 
who had found his way through the woods from Wessagus- 
set, arrived with a sad story of the condition into which that 
colony had fallen, and with confirmation of what had been 
learned from other sources about the impending danger. 
Evidently the exigency required haste; and the nine chosen 
men went on their errand with a clear conviction that, un- 
der God, all the future of New England was depending on 
their valor. 

The captain and his little force — more like a squad of arm- 
ed policemen than like a military expedition — sailed along 
the coast (March 25= April 4) and entered what was then 
called the Massachuset Bay, but is now the "broad-armed" 
port of Boston. As the S2Mrroto was lying in that smooth 
water, they went first to her, "but found neither man nor so 
much as a dog therein" — so entirely was she at the mercy 
of the Indians, who, as the truth afterward came to light, 
were only waiting for some of Weston's unsuspecting men 
to make them two more canoes before taking possession of 
her. The discharge of a gun served as a signal, and brought 



A.D. 1623.] WHAT CAME OF WESTOn's COLONY. 377 

into sight a few of the wretched settlers, "who were on the 
shore gathering ground-nuts, and getting other food." Aft- 
er a little talk with them, the captain went to their village, 
where he confei-red with such of the people as seemed most 
capable, telling them what their peril was, and ofiering, in 
the governor's name, a refuge for their whole company at 
Plymouth, if they were afraid to remain where they were. At 
the same time, he assured them that, if they thought they 
could provide for their safety in some other way, he would 
help them to the utmost of his power. His revelation of the 
plan which the Indians were just ready to execute was con- 
firmed by circumstalices which those incompetent men had 
observed but had not understood; and his offer of relief and 
protection was eagerly accepted. The stragglers from the 
village were immediately called home, and were kept from 
starving by a daily though scanty allowance of Indian corn 
from the captain's military stores. Wet and stormy weather 
prevailed for a few days ; but through tlie wet and storm 
there came an Indian, ostensibly for trade, though it was evi- 
dent enough that what he wanted was information as to why 
those men from Plymouth were there. He found more re- 
serve than he had been used to in his intercourse with the 
white men of Wessagusset ; and his report at his return 
was, " I saw by the captain's eyes that he was angry in his 
heart." The savages began to know that their plot had been 
unveiled. 

Yet they did not accept the discovery as a defeat. They 
thought themselves strong enough for open war, " One 
Pecksuot," who was what would now be called "a brave," 
came to Hobbamoc with a message of defiance: "Tell the 
captain Ave know why he has come, but we fear him not, nor 
will we shun him ; but let him begin Avhen he dare, he shall 
not take us at unawares." In various forms and by various 
messengers the defiance Avas repeated with insulting threats 
— all which " the captain observed, yet bare with patience 
for the present." But when his time for action had come, 



378 GENESIS OF THE NEAV ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

he began by putting to death Pecksuot,Wituwamat, and two 
others; tlie first two and another in a hand-to-hand fight, the 
fourth by hanging. Three more Indians were killed, two of 
them by some of Weston's people, and the war which was to 
have annihilated both settlements was ended. Three of Wes- 
ton's men, being, as they thought, on good terms with the 
savages because of services rendered, had gone, in contempt 
of strict orders, to the Massachuset sachem with oiFers of 
more service for more victuals. One of these Avas prudent 
enough to escape. The others were killed before they could 
be rescued. 

Weston's men had seen all they desired to see of life in 
New England. They were resolved to forsake their planta- 
tion ; though " the captain told them that, for his own part, 
he durst there live with fewer men than they w^ere." A few 
accepted Iiis offer, and embarked with him and his eight in 
the shallop for Plymouth. The others set sail in the iSparrow 
for the fishing-grounds, hoping to find passage thence for En- 
gland. Standish, having supplied them with food for their 
voyage, saw them "clear of the Massachuset Bay;" and then 
returned to Plymouth, bringing, according to instructions 
from the council of war, the head of Wituwamat., 

Such was the end of Weston's attempt to colonize New 
England by dealing exclusively with the selfish element in 
human nature. His pien, on their arrival at Plymouth nine 
months before, had " boasted of their strength (being all able, 
lusty men), and of what they would do and bring to pass, 
in comparison of the people there, who had many women and 
children and weak ones among them." When they saw how 
impoverished the little colony was which Bradford governed, 
they promised themselves " that they would take another 
course, and not fall into such a condition as this simple peo- 
ple were come to." No thought had they of self-sacrifice 
for Christ's sake — no dream of a refuge which they, in that 
wilderness, were to make for truth and purity, persecuted in 
the old world — no inspiration even from household affec- 



A.D. 1623.] AVHAT CAME OF WESTON's COLOXY. 3V9 

tions and anxieties. They — practical men, amply provided 
for and unincumbered — were sure to prosper. "But," said 
Bradford, making the record of their failure, " a man's way 
is not in liis own power: God can make the weak to stand; 
let him also that standeth take heed lest he fall." 

The sequel of Weston's story may be given in a few words. 
Not long after the breaking up at Wessagusset, he arrived 
on the coast of Maine, a passenger in one of the fishing ves- 
sels. For some reason, he had come disguised and under a 
fictitious name. At his arrival, he learned " the ruin and 
dissolution of his colony." He obtained a boat, and, with a 
man or two, set forth for Wessagusset to see if any thing 
remained. Overtaken by a storm, he was cast away some- 
where on what is now the coast of New Hampshire, hardly es- 
caping with his life. Falling among Indians, he was robbed 
of what he had saved from the sea, and was strippeel to his 
shirt. In that forlorn condition he found his way to the 
settlement just begun on the Piscataqua River. There he 
succeeded in borrowing clothes for his most urgent need, and 
in obtaining means for proceeding to Plymouth, At that 
place, those who had known him in his better days, and 
whom he had wronged and insulted in their distresses, had 
compassion on him. He wanted to borrow of them the bea- 
ver which they had collected, and which was their only de- 
pendence for the purchase of supplies from England, and he 
made them large promises. They distrusted his promises; 
but they " remembered foi'uier courtesies," and in pity they 
loaned him a hundred beaver-skins. With this new capital 
he went eastward, took possession of the >Sparrow, and, hav- 
ing rallied some of his men who had fled fi-om Wessagusset, 
resumed business, endeavoring to retrieve his fortune. Yet, 
like the ungrateful knave that he was, he never repaid the 
loan, nor requited the kindness otherwise than by persistent 
enmity. Afterward, Avhen he was in trouble with the repre- 
sentative of the great "Council for New England," Govern- 
or Bradford kindly interceded for liim. But to the last he 



380 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XVII. 

was the enemy of the Pilgrims. Thus he disappears from 
our history, though he lived a few years longer. 

The third season for planting Indian corn had come (April). 
So largely had the colony divided its supplies of corn with 
strangers, that none remained save what had been reserved 
for seed. For more than two years all labor in the settle- 
ment had been exacted and perfoi'raed in the communistic 
method on which the Adventurers had so unwisely insisted 
— no man had labored for himself and his own family; but 
every man had been required to labor, as under a task-mas- 
ter, for the community. Bradford and the others had main- 
tained in good faith the contract against which their good 
sense protested. But now, there being no supply of food in 
the public store, it had become impossible to enforce the 
preposterous engagement. "It was therefore thought best," 
and in a general meeting of the company it was agreed, 
"that every man should use the best diligence he could for 
his own preservation, both in respect of the time present, and 
to prepare his own corn for the year following." At the same 
time it was ordered that "a competent portion" of every 
man's crop should belong to the colony for the maintenance 
of those who, being constantly employed in the public serv- 
ice, could not be expected to raise corn for themselves. As 
yet the relation of the Planters to the Adventurers would not 
permit a permanent division of the soil, so that each fjimily 
should have its own freehold and inheritance ; but, for that 
year, there was assigned by lot to each individual a certain 
quantity of land which he was to cultivate at his own dis- 
cretion and according to his own ability. The beneficial ef- 
fects of the new arrangement were immediately manifest. 
"It made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn 
was planted than otherwise would have been by any means 
the governor could use." The forces of human nature, made 
for free industry, began to have fair play. Even "the women 
now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones 
with them to set corn, . . . whom to have compelled would 
have been thought tyranny and oppression." 



A.D. 1623.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 381 

That third summer was, not less than the first and second, 
a time of pinching want. Bradford tells ns that when their 
corn liad been planted, they had nothing in store for their 
subsistence. "They were only to rest on God's providence, 
many times not knowing at night Avhere to have a bit of any 
thing the next day. And so, as one well observed, they had 
need to pray that God would give them their "daily bread 
above all people in the woi-Id." "When they had Indian 
corn, they thought it as good as a feast ; but sometimes, for 
two or three months together, they had neither bread nor 
any kind of corn." Their boat (for at this time they had 
only one) was constantly employed in fishing, the men taking 
their turns in that service ; and when the boat was long gone 
or returned unsuccessful, all were busy in digging clams 
from the sand at low Avater. Hunters also, one or two, were 
continually ranging the woods, and sometimes a deer was 
brought home and divided. "Yet they bore these wants 
with great patience and alacrity of spirit ;" and, when they 
had nothing to eat but clams, they gave thanks to God who 
had given them "of the abundance of the seas and of treas- 
ures hid in the sand." ' 

In that time of want they had other discouragements. 
For about six weeks after the planting of their corn there 
was no refreshing rain. The crop on which they had be- 
stowed so much labor seemed likely to perish. While they 
were thus anxious, they received discouraging intelligence 
from England. A ship, the Paragon, with supplies for the 
colony and with passengers, among whom were many of their 
old friends, had been driven back by tempests. After being 
repaired at great cost and with long delay, she had sailed 
again, had been spoken with three hundred leagues at sea, 
had been lost sight of in a storm, and had not since been 
heard of Every day the thought that she might have foun- 
dered was growing more painful — especially as signs of a 

' Deut. xxxiii., 19. 

Cc 



382 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

wreck were seen on the coast. It seemed to them as if God 
had forsaken them. 

In these circumstances they remembered with what prayer 
and fasting they had sought God's favor on their enterprise 
when they were yet at Leyden, Had he indeed forsaken 
them? Had they forsaken him? They felt themselves call- 
ed, as individuals and as a community, to humiliation before 
God, whom in otlier days they had sought with fasting and 
prayer. "To that end," Winslow tells us, "a day was ap- 
pointed (July) by public authority, and set apart from all 
other employments, in hope that the same God who had 
stirred us up hereunto would be moved hereby in mercy to 
look down upon us and grant us the request of our dejected 
souls, if our continuance there might any way stand with 
his glory and our good." It was not reserved for the philos- 
ophy of the nineteenth century to deny, for the first time, 
that prayer has any place among the forces of the universe. 
Undevout speculation, before science or history began to be, 
could ask as flippantly as now, " What is the Almighty, that 
we should serve him ; and what profit shall we have if we 
pray to him?" But the faith which, learning by spiritual 
intuitions, recognizes an infinite will creating and sustaining- 
all things, an infinite wisdom ruling the worlds, and an infi- 
nite love accessible to human supplication, has a deeper in- 
sight and a wider outlook than mole-eyed science, groping 
among material atoms, can attain to while refusing to ac- 
knowledge that there are more things in heaven and earth 
than microscope or telescope reveals. Till faith shall fail 
from the earth, and the intuitions and yearnings which gen- 
erate faith shall have been eliminated from the human soul, 
there will be prayer — as there is to-day and ever has been. 
Bradford and Winslow knew, as well as any modern scientist, 
that the vapors, rising from sea and land, are condensed into 
clouds and come down again in rain ; but they did not think 
it reasonable to infer from the laws of nature the uselessness 
of prayer. They did not expect the rain they prayed for 



A.D. 1623.] ADVEESITY AND PEOGKESS. 383 

would come without clouds, nor that clouds would come out 
of the clear northwest; yet they prayed. We have no right 
to suppose that they hazarded tlieir confidence in the utility 
of prayer on the uncertainty of what a day might bring forth ; 
or that, should their fields have yielded no food, they would 
have lost their faith in God. Had their soil become powder 
and dust for lack of rain, they would nevertheless have ac- 
knowledged, even in the ruin of their hopes, the will and the 
wisdom of Him to whom they prayed. Why, then, might 
they not acknowledge the Providence that relieved them, 
and accept the relief as God's answer to their prayer? It is 
folly and not wisdom that sneers or smiles at their simplic- 
ity when they say, " Oh, the mercy of our God ! who was as 
ready to hear as we to ask." The morning of their fast-day 
was clear and sultry, with no sign of rain. According to the 
Puritan custom — and they, as Separatists, were not behind 
tlie Puritans in that respect — the observance of such a day 
was very unlike any thing that now takes place on fast-day 
in the Puritan metropolis of New England. That morning 
the Pilgrims assembled as early, probably, as nine o'clock; 
and their " exercise " of prayer and appropriate exhortation 
or preaching was continued, with little or no intermission, 
" eight or nine hours." While they were thus assembled, a 
change came over the face of the sky ; and, when they de- 
parted, the clouds had gathered which, the next morning, 
'' distilled soft, sweet, and moderate showers of rain, contin- 
uing," with some intervals of fair weather, "fourteen days." 
Their gratitude recorded itself in the phrase, "It was hard to 
say whether our withered corn or our drooping affections were 
most revived, such was the bounty and goodness of our God." 
While the timely rain was cheering them, Captain Standish, 
who had been sent eastward by the governor to purchase 
food, returned with enough for a tempoi*ary relief, so that, 
for a few days, they had bread of some sort with their clams 
and bass. Then, too, came letters from the Adventurers, an- 
nouncing that the Paragon, instead of foundering in the 



384 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCHES. [CH, XVII. 

Storm, had been driven back, and liad arrived at Portsmouth, 
in England, with their friends all safe; and also that, about 
three weeks after the date of those letters, another vessel, 
the Anne, chartered by the Adventurers, was to sail with 
sixty passengers and sixty tons of goods for the colony. In 
every direction the prospect was brightening. "We thought" 
— such is their testimony — "it would be great ingratitude if 
. . . we should content ourselves with private thanksgiving. 
. . . Therefore another solemn day was set apart and appoint- 
ed for that end, wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, 
with all thankfulness, to our good God who dealt so gra- 
ciously with us — whose name, for these and all other his mer- 
cies toward his church and chosen ones, by them be blessed 
and praised, now and evermore." 

About two weeks intervened between their reception of 
the intelligence which revived their hopes and the expected 
arrival of the Anne, followed a few days later by the Zit- 
tle Jmnes, " a fine new vessel of about forty-four tons," built 
for the colony, and to remain in its service. ' The two had 
sailed together, but had been separated by foul weather. It 
was a joyful meeting when the passengers by those two ves- 
sels arrived, all in health save one (who soon recovered), and 
found, notwithstanding the wants and hardships which the 
colony was enduring, not one sick person in Plymouth. 
Greetings full of tender memory were exchanged among 
friends who had parted, three years before, at Delft-Haven 
or at Leyden. Husbands received their wives, parents their 
children ; brothers and sisters looked each other in the face 
ajjain through tears of mingling joy and sadness.' But in 

' Two of the newly arrived were daughters of Elder Brewste;-. Another 
was the wife of Deacon Fuller, the physician. Six were wives of men who 
came in the Fortune or the Maii flower. George Morton, who brought with 
him his family of five children, was also accompanied by his wife's sister. 
Alice, the widow of Edward Southworth. A few days after her arrival she 
was married to Governor Bradford. Her maiden name was Carpenter. 
Her two Southworth sons, honomlily represented by the Southworths of to- 



A.D. 1623.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 385 

company with those old friends from Leyden, were others 
from England who were not all of the same sort. The Ad- 
venturers, in their greed for early profits, and in their igno- 
rance of the work they had undertaken, were always ready 
to accept as competent recruits for the colony men whom 
the Pilgrims would have rejected as deficient in moral char- 
acter. Some of that sort came in the Fortune. Some had been 
even crowded into the Mayflower. So, of this third compa- 
ny, " some were so bad " that the government of the colony 
was " fain to be at charge to send them home again next 
year." Cushman, who was still in England, busy as ever in 
the great enterprise, had made earnest but ineffectual pro- 
test against the heedlessness of the Adventurers in this re- 
spect. It was much easiei", he said, to enlist recruits for the 
colony than to raise supplies. " People come flying in upon 
us ; but moneys come creeping in to us. Some few of your 
old friends are come, . . . and, by degrees, I hope ere long 
you shall enjoy them all. And because people press so hard 
upon us to go, I pray you write earnestly to the treasurer 
and direct what persons should be sent. It grieveth me to 
see so weak a company sent you, and yet, liad I not been 
here, they had been weaker. You must still call upon the 
Company here to see that honest men be sent you, and threat- 
en to send them back if any other come. . . . We are not any 
way so much in danger as by corrupt and naught)^ persons." 
Bradford, transcribing the letter into liis history, left un- 
named the men of whom Cushman said, They "came without 
\x\^ consent, but the importunity of their friends got prom- 
ise of our treasurer in my absence. Neither is there need 

day, came over perhaps five years later. The family tradition is that be- 
tween William Bradford and Alice Carpenter there had been in their early 
youth some disappointment of affection, and that their engagement to each 
other was made by correspondence across three thousand miles of ocean. 
Another of tliose passengers was Barbara (her maiden name not known), who 
soon became the wife of Captain Standish, whose first wife, Rose, " died in 
the first sickness." 



386 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cil. XVII. 

we should take any lewd men, for we may have honest men 
enough." 

The new colonists saw not much that was, at the first view, 
encouraging. " Some wished themselves in England again ; 
some fell a-weeping, fancying their own misery in what they 
saw ; some pitied the distress they saw their friends were 
under" — in a word, all were full of sadness. Yet some who, 
at Leyden, had been familiar with penury endured for Christ's 
sake, rejoiced not only to see their old friends, but also to 
hope with them that " better days" were coming. By a few 
homely details, Bradford makes us understand in what ex- 
tremity of need those Pilgrims of the Anne found the sur- 
vivors of the 3Iayflower and the Fortune: "They were in a 
very low condition. Many were ragged in apparel, and some 
little better than half-naked ; though some," who had brought 
with them a full supply of clothing, " were well enough in this 
regai-d. But lor food they were all alike, save some that had 
got a few pease of the ship that was last here. The best dish 
they could present their friends with was a lobster, or a piece 
offish, without bread, or any thing else but a cup of fair spring 
water. The long continuance of this diet, and their labors 
abroad," in the summer sunshine of New England, "had some- 
what abated the freshness of their former complexion. But 
God gave them health and strength in a good measure, and 
showed them by experience the truth of that word, ' Man 
liveth not by bread only, but by every word that proceed- 
eth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.'"* 

A letter from the Adventurers, subscribed by thirteen of 
their names, expressed an undiminished interest in the colony 
as a religious undertaking : " Loving friends, we most heart- 
ily salute you in all love and hearty affection; being yet in 
hope that the same God who hath hitherto presei-ved you in 
a marvelous manner, doth yet continue your lives and health 

' Deut. viii., .3. The entire verse is to the point : "He humbled thee, and 
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, 
neither did thy fatliers know ; that he niiglit make thee know that," etc. 



A.D. 1623.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 387 

to his own praise and all our comforts. . . . We would not 
have you discontent, because we have not sent you more of 
your old friends, and, in special, him," Robinson, " on whom 
you most depend. Far be it from us to neglect you or con- 
temn him. But as the intent was at first, so the event at 
last shall show, that we will deal fairly, and squarely answer 
your expectations to the full. . . . Although it seemeth you 
have discovered many more rivers and fertile grounds than 
that where you are, yet seeing by God's providence that 
place fell to your lot, let it be accounted as your portion ; 
and rather fix your eyes upon that which may be done there, 
than languish in hopes after things elsewhere. ... If the 
land afibrd you bread and the sea yield you fish, rest you a 
while contented ; God will one day alFord you better fare. 
And all men shall know that you are neither fugitives nor 
discontents, but can, if God so order it, take the worst to 
yourselves with content, and leave the best to your neighbors 
with cheerfulness. Let it not be grievous to you that you 
have been instruments to break the ice for others who come 
after with less difficulty. The honor will be youi:s to the 
world's end. 

"We bear you always in our breasts; and our hearty af- 
fection is toward you all ; as are the hearts of hundreds more 
who never saw your faces, who doubtless pray for your safety 
as their own — as we ourselves both do and ever shall — that 
the same God who hath so marvelously preserved you from 
seas, foes, and famine, will still preserve you from all future 
dangers, and make you honorable among men and glorious 
in bliss at the last day. And so the Lord be with you all, 
and send us joyful news from you, and enable us with one 
shoulder so to accomplish and perfect this work that much 
glory may come to Him that confoundeth the mighty by the 
weak, and maketh small things great — to whose greatness 
be all glory forever." 

In a few days, the A7i7ie sailed homeward (Sept. 10=20) 
with a cargo which was likely to encourage the Adventurers 



388 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVII. 

in their part of the work, Winslow was at the same time 
sent as agent I'or the colony, to confer with its patrons, and to 
procure either from tliem or by other means such things as 
were indispensable to its progress. "By this time harvest 
was come," the yellow corn began to be gathered into the 
granary; "and instead of famine God now gave them plenty. 
The face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts 
of many, for which they blessed God." The experiment on 
which they had ventured contrary to the letter of their con- 
tract with their partners in London — tlie allotment of lands 
for that year to families or to individuals, so that every man 
might work for himself, instead of putting his labor into the 
common stock — had been successful. There were few, if any, 
who had not enough, " one way and another, to bring the 
year about, and some of the abler and more industi-ious had 
to spare." Thenceforth there was no more general want or 
famine in Plymouth. Instead of buying corn from the In- 
dians, they had corn to sell for beaver and other peltry. 

Once more the apocalyptic vision,' so often illustrated in 
the progress of Messiah's kingdom, was translating itself into 
history. The woman, after her birth -pangs, had fled from 
the dragon into the wilderness; and the earth had begun to 
help the woman. Manifestly, the Pilgrim colony, so devoutly 
imagined and planned at Leyden, had become a fact. Chris- 
tianity had obtained in New England " a place prepared of 
God." The Church of Christ was here in the simplest pos- 
sible organization, separating itself alike from the great apos- 
tasy ruled by the Roman pontifl", and from the anomalous in- 
stitution set up in England by the imperious will of Eliza- 
beth Tudor, and was building itself " on the foundation of 
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
chief corner-stone." ^ 

It disowned the claim of the princes of this world to rule 
in that kingdom which is not of this world. It permitted 

• Rev. xii. 'Eph. ii.,20. 



A.D. 1G23.] ADVERSITY AND PROGRESS. 389 

no priestly intervention between the redeemed soul and its 
divine Redeemer. It was simply " the communion of the 
saints;" the free and loving fellowship of those whom Christ 
had made " kings and priests unto God ;" the spontaneous 
association of believers for united worship, for mutual hel}>- 
fulness in holy living, and for strength to labor or to suffer 
in the service of God. 



390 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM AGAINST THE PILGRIM CHURCH. 

The success of the few exiles who had migrated from 
Leyden to America was beginning to take effect in England. 
For a long time there had been in English minds the hope 
and the scheme of a colonial empire beyond the ocean. Cap- 
ital and labor had been lavislily expended in Virginia ; and 
the settlements there, after many disasters, were just begin- 
ning to have some appearance of prosperity. But the at- 
tempt, simultaneous with the founding of Jamestown (1607), 
to establish a colony in North Virginia, afterward named 
New England, had failed in less than a year, though magnif- 
icently patronized. Weston's more recent attempt had been 
more ignominiously unsuccessful. Such failures made the 
success of the settlement at Plymouth more conspicuous.^ 

Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who had always been the life of 
King James's " Council for New England," was encouraged 
to hope that the dominion which the royal charter had given 
to that council might soon become something more than a 
name. Hitherto the imperial powers of that august body 
had been chiefly productive of fruitless attempts to impose 
tribute on the fishing vessels which resorted to the coast; 
but while Plymouth was struggling through its third sum- 



' Captain John Smith, in his "New England's Trials," 1 622, had briefly de- 
scribed the beginning and already hopefid progress of the Plymouth colony. 
The same year there was published the invaluable document commonly cited 
as "Mourt's Relation," but identified and republished by Young ("Chron- 
icles of the Pilgrims," p. 109, sq.) as " Bradford and Winslow's Journal," with 
a prefoce by George Morton. Cushman's " Sermon," with a glowing pref- 
ace, descriptive of New England and inviting emigration, is of the same 
date. Winslow's "Good News from New England" was published in 1624. 



A.D, 1623.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 391 

mer (July, 1623), there came into its harbor a ship with a 
captain on board, " who had a commission to be Admiral of 
New England." About two months later, Captain Robert 
Gorges, sou of Sir Ferdinand, came with a commission to be 
Governor-General of the country. Arriving " in the bay of 
the Massachusetts with sundry joassengers and families," he 
attempted to make another beginning at the place which 
Weston's men had so recently forsaken (Sept., 1623). The 
plan for a general government over all the territory granted 
to the Council for New England acknowledged the existence 
and in some sort the autonomy of Plymouth, inasmuch as 
the governor of that colony for the time being was to be, 
by virtue of his office, one of the Governor-General's council. 
But, on the other hand, it seems to have assumed that the 
ecclesiastical authority which prescribed and controlled the 
religion of England was to have the same sway in New En- 
gland. Accordingly, the great Council took care for the re- 
ligious welfare of the expedition led forth by Governor-Gen- 
eral Gorges. There was in his suite a chaplain, who was not 
only charged with the care of souls in the renewed planta- 
tion at Wessagusset, but was also expected to have some 
sort of superintendence over the Separatists of Plymouth. 
He found, however, no opportunity of asserting his jurisdic- 
tion ; nor does he seem to have had any disposition to do so. 
Gorges, "not finding the state of things here to answer his 
quality and condition," returned to England (1624) after the 
experience of one winter in the country which he had under- 
taken to govern. Planting colonies in such a wilderness was 
not the agreeable employment which he, the son of Sir Fer- 
dinand, "being newly come out of the Venetian war," had 
hoped for. His departure was, in effect, the breaking up of 
his attempted colony. Some of the people whom he had 
brought followed him to England ; others went to Virginia ; 
a few " remained and Avere helped with supplies " from Plym- 
outh. Among the few was the chaplain, whose conduct in 
relation to the Plymouth people seems to have been such as 



392 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVllI. 

gave them no oflense. He was a man of culture and of po- 
etic sensibility. Enamored of the natural beauty which he 
saw in New England, he recorded his observations on the 
country in a Latin poem which, with a free translation of it 
into less polished English verse, seems to have been his chief 
employment here.^ After another year, he also returned to 
England (1625), his office at Wessagusset having become a 
sinecure. Bradford says of him, as if with an unconscious 
smile, "He liad I know not Avhat power and authority of su- 
perintendency over other churches granted him, and sundry- 
instructions for that end; but he never showed" his com- 
mission " or made any use of it (it should seem he saw it 
was in vain) ; he only spoke of it to some here at his going 
away." 

So ended tliat attemj^t to introduce Nationalism, or the 
national-churcli theory of Christianity, into New England. 
The Separatists of Scrooby, the exiles of Leyden, the Pil- 
grims of tlie Mayfloioer^ had brought with them a tlieory 
which permitted neither king nor parliament to rule in the 
Church of Christ. For them the wilderness and solitary 
place were beginning to be glad, and it was not in the book 
of God's decrees that the system which had driven them 

^ Thiit bi-lingual poem was published after the authoi-'s return to England. 
It may be found entire in tlie first series of the Mass. Historical Society's 
Collections, i., 1 25-139. He thus describes .;he " ground-nut," so often men- 
tioned by Bradford and Winslovv, the Apios tuberosa of the botanists; 

" Vimine gramineo nnx subterranea suavis 
Serpit humi, tenui flavo sub cortice pingui 
Et placido nucleo nivei candoris ab intra 
Melliflua parcos hilarans dulcedine gustus 
Donee in ajstivum Phoebus consceuderit axcm." 



In English : 



■ A ground-nut there runs on a grassy thread 
Along the shallow earth as in a bed ; 
Yellow without, thin-filra'd, sweet, lily-white, 
Of strength to feed and cheer the appetite." 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 393 

into banishment slionld follow them hither. Apparitors and 
pursuivants, acts of uniformity and bishops' prisons, commis- 
sary courts and High Commission, found no entrance on this 
side of the ocean, though so gentle and genial a man as Will- 
iam Mori'ell had been sent to prepare the way for them. 

Another attempt against Separatism in New England was 
already in progress from a very different quarter. Before 
the coming over of Gorges with his plantei'S of a new col- 
ony, and with his state-church chaplain, the Pilgrims were 
aware of disagreements and complaints among the Advent- 
urers, though Weston was no longer a partner in the Com- 
pany. For that reason the friendly letter which came to 
them by the A7i7ie, with thirteen names of the Adventurers 
subscribed, was the more welcome, especially because of the 
regard which it expressed for their " old friends " and their 
pastor still detained at Leyden.^ But the full significance 
of that letter became painfully apparent when Winslow re- 
turned from his mission in England (March, 1624). He came 
in the ship Chariti/, which brought supplies for the colony,^ 
together with some passengers Avhose names will appear in 
our story. By the same vessel came letters which, even 
without his report of what he had himself observed, revealed 
the fact that among the Adventurers there was a strong and 
active party adverse to the Pilgrim church. 

James Sherley, one of the Adventurers, and "a chief friend 
of the colony," wrote to his " most Avorthy and loving friends," 
and explained to them the difficulties which had embar- 
rassed " the setting forth of this ship :" " We have some 
among us who undoubtedly aim more at their own private 
ends, and at the thwarting and opposing of some here 
and other worthy instruments of God's glory elsewhere " 
(referring especially to Leyden and to Robinson), "than at 
the general good and the furtherance of this noble and laud- 

' Ante, p. r.86, 387. 

' "He brought three heifers and a bull, the first beginning of any cattle 
of that kind in the land, with some clothing and other necessaries." 



394 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XVIII, 

able action. Yet again we have many other, and I hope the 
greater part, very honest Christian men, whose ends and in- 
tents (I am j^ersuaded) are wholly for the glory of our Lord 
Jesus Christ in the propagation of his Gospel, and hope of 
gaining those poor savages to the knowledge of God. But . . . 
these malcontented persons and turbulent spirits do what 
in them lieth to withdraw men's hearts from you and your 
friends, yea, even from the general business ; and yet under 
show and pretense of godliness and furtherance of the plan- 
tation." After describing some of their contentions, the let- 
ter ended with a more cheerful view. "On the 12th of Jan- 
uary, ... at night, when we met to read the general letter, we 
had the lovingest and friendliest meeting that ever I knew. 
... So I sent for a pottle of wine (I would you could do 
the like'), which we drank friendly together. Thus God can 
turn the hearts of men when it pleaseth him." Sherley did 
not then know the reason why that meeting appeared to be 
so " loving and friendly." The faction opposed to Leyden 
and to Robinson had taken measures which, they thought, 
would guard the colony and New England against the 
growth of Separatism. 

Already the Adventurers had introduced into the colony 
an element which could liardly fail to w^ork disturbance. Be- 
sides the sixty in the Ajme, who were under the same en- 
gagement to the Adventurers Avith the original Planters,^ 
"there came a company that did not belong to the general 
body, but came on their particular, and Avere to have lands 
assigned them and be for themselves, yet subject to the gen- 

' Bradford says in a note appended to his transcript of the letter: "It is 
worthy to be observed how the Lord doth change times and things ; for what 
is now more plentiful than wine? and that of the best, coming from Malaga, 
the Canaries, and other places, sundry ships lading in a year. So as there 
is now more cause to complain of the excess and the abuse of wine (through 
men's corruption), even to drunkenness, than of any defect or want of the 
same. Witness this year 1040. The good Lord lay not the sins and un- 
thankfulness of men to their charge in this particular." 

= Ante, p. 282, 283. 



A,D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 395 

eral government." Those privileged planters were received 
without remonstrance, two things having been stipulated 
by the Adventurers in sending them : first, that the entire 
trade in peltry should be retained " for the general " till the 
dissolution of the partnership, and the final division of its 
property ; and, secondly, that the assignment of lands to 
those who " came on their particular " should be at such con- 
venient distance from the town as would not interfere with 
the laying out of lands to be cultivated by the community. 
Some of those persons were disappointed, having " looked for 
greater matter's than they found or could attain to." Sev- 
eral of them took the first opportunity of returning to En- 
gland — "some out of discontent and dislike of the country; 
others by reason of a fire that broke out and burned the 
houses they lived in, and all their provisions, so as they were 
necessitated thereunto." ^ Naturally they carried back an ill 
report. Some, also, of the men whom Bradford had found 
too lazy, or otherwise worthless, and had sent home for that 
reason, gave out malicious stories in disparagement of Plym- 
outh. Sherley's letter was accompanied with a summing up 
of the things which were said against the colony. "These," 
said he, " are the chief objections which they that are now 
returned make against you and the country. I pray you 
consider them, and answer them by the first conveniency." 
Bradford, in his "History," sets them down at full length, 
with the answers which he sent by the return of the vessel. 
Some of the objections to the country are absurd enough to 
be amusing, and the answers are appreciative. One objec- 
tion was, " The water is not wholesome." The reply was, " If 
they mean, not so wholesome as the good beer and wine in 
London, which they so dearly love, we will not dispute with 
them ; but . . . for water, it is as good as any in the world 

' "This fire was occasioned by some of the seamen [of Gorges's ship] that 
were roistering in a house where it began, making a great fire in very cold 
weather [Nov. 5 = 15], which broke out of the chimney into the thatch and 
burned down tliree or four houses." 



396 



GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 



{for aught we know), and it is wholesome enough to us that 
can be content therewith." To another objection, " The 
ground is barren, and doth bear no grass," Bradford an- 
swered that woods, even in EngLand, do not yield such grass 
as grows in iields and meadows ; that the cattle imported by 
the Charity were already thriving on the native grass ; and 
that, to all who had eyes to see, that objection, like some 
of the rest, Avas simply " ridiculous." Somebody had been 
foolish enough to say, "Tiie fish" of New England "will not 
take salt to keep sweet," and others had been weak enough 
to think it might be true; to which Bradford replied, "They 
might as well say there can no ale or beer in London be 
kept from souring." A less absurd objection was that the 
country was "annoyed with foxes and wolves;" but this was 
disposed of by a simple reference to " other good countries " 
annoyed in the same way, and to the efficacy of " poisons, 
traps, and other such means " for the destruction of preda- 
tory animals. " The Dutch," too, were already " planted near 
Hudson's River,"' and (worse than foxes and wolves) might 
become rivals in trade. But Bradford had learned, at Leyden, 
to think kindly of tlie Dutch instead of fearing them, and 
his reply was, "They will come and plant in these parts also, 
if we and others do not, but go home and leave it to them. We 
rather commend them than condemn them for it," Of "ob- 
jections against the country," the last, and not the least for- 
midable, was, "The people are much annoyed with mosqui- 
toes;" to which it was answered, "They are too delicate and 
unfit to begin new plantations and colonies who can not en- 
dure the biting of a mosquito. We would wish such to keep 
at home till they be at least mosquito-proof Yet this place 
is as free as any ; and experience teacheth that the more 
the land is tilled and the woods cut down, the fewer there 
will be." Such "objections against the country" were, how- 



' "Hudson's Bay" in Bradford; but the reference is evidently to the 
Dutch attempts at settlement on the Hudson Kiver. 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 397 

ever, of small account when compared with objections which 
had been urged against the colony itself on the ground of 
its religious character, and which were therefore placed at 
the head of the catalogue : " Diversity about religion ;" 
" Neglect of family duties on the Lord's day ;" " Want of 
both the sacraments;" "Children not catechized nor taught 
to read." 

Evidently these were Puritan objections against a colony 
characterized by Separatist principles and tendencies. One 
by one they were answered, curtly but explicitly. As for 
diversity about religion, " We know no such matter ; for here 
was never any controversy or opposition, either public or 
private (to our knowledge), since we came." As for neg- 
lect of family duties on the Lord's day, "We allow no such 
thing, but blame it in ourselves and others ; and they that 
thus report it would have showed their Christian love the 
more if they had in love told the olFenders of it, rather than 
thus reproach them behind their backs. But (to say no 
more) we wish themselves had given better example." Ad- 
mitting their want of both the sacraments, they took occa- 
sion to remonstrate against the wrong they were suffering in 
that respect : " The more is our grief that our pastor is kept 
from us, by whom we might enjoy them ; for we used to 
have the Lord's Supper every Sabbath, and baptism as often 
as there was occasion of children to baptize." To the cruel 
charge that their children were not catechized nor taught 
to read, they answered, " Neither is true ; for divers take 
pains with their own as they can. We have, indeed, no com- 
mon school, for want of a lit person, or (hitherto) means to 
maintain one, though we desire now to begin." A " com- 
mon school" — public as the highway — was in their plan 
and purpose, even when they were just emerging from their 
long conflict with starvation, and when their entire number 
— men, women, and children — did not exceed one hundred 
and eighty. 

It was the religious condition of those Separatists at Plym- 
D D 



398 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

outh, waiting and longing for their Separatist pastor, that 
weighed so heavily on the minds of Puritans among the Ad- 
venturers. But before that " lovingest and friendliest meet- 
ing" which so delighted Sherley, they had engaged a cler- 
gyman to go over among the passengers on the Charity^ and 
they were trusting that his ministrations, if the Brownist 
Robinson could still be detained at Leyden, would supply the 
religious destitution of Plymouth, and contribute something 
to the ecclesiastical future of New England. It must not be 
supposed that they knew the man whom they were sending 
on a mission so delicate and so important. John Lyford 
had lately returned from Ireland. In that country he had 
" wound himself into the esteem of sundry godly and zealous 
professors, . . . who, having been burdened wath the cere- 
monies in England, found there some more liberty to their 
consciences." The reasons, not yet divulged, which had con- 
strained him to forego the liberty enjoyed by Puritans in 
Ireland, were such as might naturally induce him to accept 
an employment in some distant colony. Having "wound 
himself into the esteem of sundry godly and zealous profess- 
ors" in the company of Adventurers, it was thought by them 
that he might also wind himself into the esteem of the god- 
ly though wrongheaded people at Plymouth, and counteract 
the undesirable influence of John Robinson. Cushman, who 
was still in England, at work with all his might for the col- 
ony, seems to have given a reluctant assent to the sending 
of Lyford. He knew how the Pilgrims longed for a minister 
who would accept, as Brewster would not, the office of a 
teaching elder, and who might be associated with their pas- 
tor in the care of the church ; and, in his enthusiastic hopeful- 
ness, he might easily persuade himself that this preacher, at 
the worst, would do no harm. In a letter to the governor, 
he said: "The preacher we have sent is, we hope, an hon- 
est, plain man, though none of the most eminent and rare. 
About choosing him into office, use your own liberty and dis- 
cretion. He knows he is no officer among you, though per- 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 399 

haps custom nnd universality may make him forget liimself. 
Mr. Winslow and myself gave way to his going, to give con- 
tent to some here ; and we see no hurt in it, but only his 
great charge of children." Evidently both Winslow, who 
was to be a fellow-passenger with Lyford, and Cushman, who 
was to remain in England, had some suspicion of a sinister 
design, but were confident of the ability of the church to 
hold fast its principle of congregational independence. 

Two letters from the beloved pastor in Leyden came by 
the Charity, one to Bradford, the other to Brewster. Robin- 
son had his own means of information concerning the fac- 
tions among the Adventurers ; and his statements bring into 
clear light the fact that it was Puritanism which was so cru- 
elly pertinacious in keeping him away from the place where 
all his hopes, this side of heaven, were centred. To Brad- 
ford he wrote (1623, Dec. 19 = 29): 

"My loving and much -beloved Fkiend, whom God 
hath hitherto preserved, [may he] preserve and keep you still 
to his glory and the good of many ; that his blessing may 
make your godly and wise endeavors answerable to the val- 
uation which they there [in Plymouth] set upon the same. 
Of your love to and care for us here we never doubted ; so 
are we glad to take knowledge of it in that fullness we do. 
Our love and care to and for you is mutual; though our 
hopes of coming unto you be small and weaker than ever. 
But of this at large in Mr. Brewster's letter, with whom you 
— and he with you mutually — I know, communicate your 
letters, as I desire you may do these. 

"Concerning the killing of those poor Indians,' of which 
we heard at first by report, and since by more certain rela- 
tion, oh ! how happy a thing had it been if you had convert- 
ed some before you had killed any ! Besides, where blood 
is once begun to be shed, it is seldom stanched of a long 

' Ante, p. 378. 



400 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH.XVIII. 

time after. You will say they deserved it. I grant it; but 
upon what provocations and invitements by those heathenish 
Christians! Besides, you, being no magistrates over them, 
were to consider not what they deserved, but what you were 
by necessity constrained to inflict. Necessity of this, es- 
pecially of killing so many (and many more, it seems, they 
would if they could), I see not. Methinks one or two prin- 
cipals should have been full enough, according to that ap- 
proved rule, 'The punishment to the few, and the fear to the 
many.' Upon this occasion, let me be bold to exhort you 
seriously to consider the disposition of your captain, whom I 
love, and am persuaded the Lord in great mercy and for 
much good hath sent you him, if you use him aright. He is 
a man humble and meek among you, and toward all, in or- 
dinary course. But now, if this be merely from a human 
spirit,^ there is cause to fear that, by occasion especially of 
provocation, there may be wanting that tenderness of the 
life of man, made after God's image, which is meet. It is 
also a thing more glorious in men's eyes than pleasing in 
God's or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor bar- 
barous people, and, indeed, I am afraid lest, by these occa- 
sions, others should be drawn to afiect a kind of rnfliiiig 
course in the world. 

" I doubt not but you will take in good part these things 
which I write, and, as there is cause, make use of them. It 
were to us more comfortable and convenient that we com- 
municated our mutual helps in presence, but seeing that can 
not be done, w^e shall always long after you, and love you, 
and wait God's appointed time. The Adventurers, it seems, 
have neither money nor any great mind of us, for the most 
part. They deny it to be any part of the covenants between 

I What Eobinson means is: "If the captain's humbleness and meekness, 
and the traits for which we love him, are not inspired and sanctified by the 
divine Spirit, there is cause to fear," etc. Standish, much as the Pilgrims 
loved and honored him, and devoted as he was to their heroic enterprise, was 
not a member of their church. 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM, 401 

US that they should transport us ; neither do I look for any 
further help from them, till means come from you. We here 
are strangers, in effect, to the whole course ; and so both we 
and you (save as your own wisdom and worth have interest- 
ed you further), [instead] of [being] principals, [as was] in- 
tended, in this business, are scarce accessories. 

" My wife, with me, resalutes you and yours. Unto Him 
who is the same to his in all places, and near to them who 
are far from one another, I commend you and all with you." 

While the almost despairing sadness of this letter touches 
our sympathy, its tenderly affectionate and Christian spirit, 
and its wise but gentle admonitions, show what the writer's 
influence would have been could he have had the privilege 
—for which his heart was ready to break— of living and 
dying among the friends who longed for his presence. His 
hopes of coming to New England are " small and Aveaker 
than ever." The majority of the Adventurers, "it seems," 
have no money to expend in reinforcing their colony with 
such people as those exiles left at Leyden, "nor any great 
mind" if they had the money. Nay, they deny that any 
obligation of that sort was implied in the contract between 
themselves and the Pilgrims. For explanation of these hints, 
the writer makes express reference to a letter of one day's 
later date, addressed to an older and more intimate friend, 
his co-presbyter Brewster: 

" Loving and dear Friend and Brother, — That which I 
most desired of God in regard of you, namely, the continuance 
of your life and health, and the safe coming of those sent unto 
you, I most gladly hear of, and praise God for the same. 
And I hope Mrs. Brewster's weak and decayed state of body 
will have some repairing by the coming of her daughters,^ 
and the provision which, I hear, is made for you in this and 

^ Ante, p. 381. 



402 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUKCUES. [CH, XVllI. 

former ships, which makes us with more patience bear our 
languishing state and the deferring of our desired transporta- 
tion — desired rather than hoped for, whatsoever you are 
borne in hand by any others. P'or, first, there is no hope at 
all (that I know or can conceive of) of any new stock to be 
raised for that end, so that all must depend upon returns 
from you, in which are so many uncertainties that nothing 
with any certainty can thence be concluded. Besides, how- 
soever for the present the Adventurers allege nothing but 
want of money, which is an invincible difficulty, yet, if that 
be taken away by you, others without doubt will be found. 

" For the better clearing of this, we must dispose the Ad- 
venturers into three parts, (l.) Some five or six, as I con- 
ceive, are absolutely bent for us above any others. (2.) 
Other five or six are our bitter, professed adversaries. (3.) 
The rest, being the body, I conceive to be honestly minded, 
and lovingly also, toward us, yet such as have others, name- 
ly, the forward preachers, nearer unto them than us [than we 
are], and whose course, so far as there is any difierence, they 
would rather advance than ours. Now what a hank [hold] 
these men have over the professors, you know. And I per- 
suade myself that for me, they of all others are unwilling I 
should be transported — especially such as have an eye that 
way themselves ; as thinking, if I come there, their market 
will be marred in many regards. And for these adversaries, 
if they have but half the wit to their malice [^. e., half as 
much wit as malice], they will stop my course when they see 
it intended, for which this delaying serveth them very op- 
portunely. And as one restie [restive] jade can hinder, by 
hanging back, more than two or three can (or will, at least, 
if they be not very free) draw forward, so will it be in this 
case. A notable experiment of this they gave in your mes- 
senger's presence, constraining the Company to promise that 
none of the money now gathered should be expended or 
employed to the help of any of us toward you. 

" Now touching the question propounded by you : I judge 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 403 

it not lawful for you — being a ruling elder (Rom. xii., V, 8, 
and 1 Tim. v., 17), as opposed to the elders that teach and 
labor in word and doctrine — to which the sacraments are an- 
nexed — to administer them [the sacraments], nor convenient 
[expedient], if it were lawful. Whether any learned man 
will come unto you or not, I know not. If any do come, 
you must consilium capere in arenas 

" Be you most heartily saluted, and your wife with you, 
both from me and mine. Your God and ours, and the God 
of all his, bring us together if it be his will ; and keep us, in 
the mean while and always, to his glory, and make us service- 
able to his majesty and faithful to the end. Amen." 

These being the latest letters now extant from the pen of 
Robinson, are, on that account, worthy of a place in this 
narrative, as well as on account of the light which they give 
concerning the purpose of Lyford's mission. The Advent- 
urers were induced to send him by the influence of " the for- 
ward preachers" over " the professors." Giffard, the Puritan 
" minister of God's holy Word in Maiden," who wrote against 
Barrowe and Greenwood, was in his day one of "the forward 
preachers." Bernard, the Puritan vicar of Worksop, whose 
" invective entituled ' The Separatists' Schisme,' " called forth 
from Robinson the "Justification of Separation from the 
Church of England," was a "forward preacher." ^ The 
"Pontificals" were never called "forward preachers" either 
by Puritans or by Separatists, nor were their admiring hear- 
ers known by any such name as "professors of godliness," 

Those "forward preachers" whose influence over their 
friends among the Adventurers eflected the sending of Ly- 
ford to Plymouth in the interest of Puritanism against Sep- 

' By this phrase RoMnson means : "If a minister come to you from En- 
gland, you must 'take counsel in the field' " — decide the question for your- 
selves; or, as Cushman said, "use your own liberty and discretion about 
choosing him into office. " 

^ Ante, p. 120-122, 244. 



404 GENESIS OF TUE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

aratism, were sadly mistaken in the character of their mis- 
sionary. Probably they could see, as easily as Cushman saw, 
that in his quality of preacher he was " none of the most 
eminent and rare ;" but tliey must have shared Cushman's 
confidence in him as "an honest, plain man." His gifts, we 
must assume, were considered adequate to the work so long- 
as Robinson could be kept from going to baffle him. On his 
arrival at Plymouth, he made extraordinary professions of 
" reverence and humility " toward the chief men of the 
church. "He wept and shed many tears, blessing God that 
had brought him to see their faces, and admiring the things 
they had done in their wants, as if he had been made all of 
love, and were the humblest person in the world." In their 
simplicity they received him with hearty welcome. " They 
gave him the best entertainment they could, and a larger al- 
lowance of food out of the store" — for himself and his wife, 
and " his great charge of children " that Cushman had men- 
tioned — a larger allowance " than any other had." Recog- 
nizing him as (in Robinson's phrase) " a learned man," they 
desired the benefit of his intelligence in their deliberations 
on the aflfairs of their commonwealth. " As the governor 
had used in all weighty affairs to consult with their elder, 
Mr, Brewster, together with his assistants," elected for that 
purpose,' " so now he called Mr. Lyford also to consult with 
them in their weightiest businesses." They were becoming 
acquainted with him, and he with them. 

"After some short time, he desired to join himself, as a 
member, to the church here " — the church which those for- 
ward preachers in London held to be schismatic, because it 
had separated itself from that National Church which they 
recognized and were striving to reform. He " was accord- 
ingly received " in the way in which other members Avere 
received. " He made a large confession of his faith ;" and 
— what was deemed hardly less important than any pi-ofes- 

' At the annual election in 1G24, five assistants were chosen. 



A.D, 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF IN^ATIONALISM. 405 

sion of dogmatic belief, however sound — lie made "an ac- 
knowledgment of his former disorderly walking " in that he 
had submitted to an ecclesiastical government which was 
not according to the Word of God, and how he had been " en- 
tangled in many corruptions which had been a burden to his 
conscience." With many expressions which in that time and 
in that place had great significance, he " blessed God for the 
opportunity of freedom to enjoy the ordinances of Go.d in 
purity among his people." While thus receiving him as a 
member, on his personal profession of faith and his engage- 
ment to walk with them in the order of the Gospel, the 
church did not forget the advice — "About choosing him into 
office, use your own liberty and discretion." It was only 
reasonable prudence to wait for a larger experience of his 
gifts, and a better acquaintance Avith his Christian graces, 
before calling him to the office of pastor or of teacher. He 
preached among them, not in " the ministry of office," but in 
"the exercise of prophesying." 

At the same time, Mr. John Oldham, who, without being 
a very zealous Puritan, had been known as opposing the Sep- 
aratist principles professed and practiced by the Pilgrims, 
became, suddenly, a professed friend of the church and of 
the course of affairs in the commonwealth. He had been in 
the colony since the arrival of the Anne, being one of those 
who came " on their particular," or as adventurers on their 
own account. With others of the particulars, " drawing to 
their side some of the weaker sort of the company," he had 
helped to form a party of malcontents in relations of mutual 
intelligence with the anti-Separatist party among the Ad- 
venturers at London. " But now," since the arrival of the 
Charity with supplies, and with passengers of whom Lyford 
was one, "he took occasion to open his mind to some of the 
chief" among the Pilgrims, " and confessed that he had done 
them wrong both by word and deed, and by writing into 
England." He told them that "he now saw the eminent 
hand of God to be with them and his blessing upon tliem. 



406 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

which made his heart smite him." In his professed repent- 
ance, he promised that their adversaries in England should 
never more use him as an instrument against them. "He 
also desired that former things might be forgotten, and that 
they would look upon him as one that desired to close with 
them in all things." It does not appear that he was re- 
ceived, nor that he desired to be received, as a member of 
the Pilgrim church, but " they showed all readiness to em- 
brace him in love ;" and from that time, in consideration of 
his ability as a man of business and his position among those 
who "came on their particulars," he Avas invited to take part 
in the consultations on all important affairs. 

Great joy was there in the hope that now things were to 
"go comfortably and smoothly." But ere long it was dis- 
covered that Lyford and Oldham were at work as the lead- 
ers of a party adverse to the church and to the influ- 
ence that was moulding the commonwealth. They were 
good friends with any body, " however vile or profane," that 
would speak against the church and its rigid principles of 
Separation; and they were "feeding themselves and others 
with Avhat they should bring to pass in England by the 
faction of their friends there." Perhaps Lyford was dis- 
pleased to find that liis reception into the church had not 
given him any authority in that body, and that he was not 
considered competent to administer sacraments in the churcli 
of Plymouth by Adrtue of his ordination in the National 
Church of England. 

While these things were in progress, the Charity com- 
pleted the fishing voyage on which she had been sent by her 
owners, and she was now ready for her return to England 
(July). It was observed that Lyford had been very much 
occupied with writing, and that the letters which he had 
prepared in expectation of this opportunity were numer- 
ous. He was indiscreet enough to give out, among those 
who were of his party, some hints of the great effects which 
his letters would produce in England and of the revolution 



A.D. 1624.1 ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 407 

I -■ 

which would ensue in the colony. It seemed to the govern- 
or, and to his friends with whom he consulted, that the safe- 
ty of their commonwealth required prompt and decisive 
measures. "Knowing how things stood in England, and 
what hurt these things might do, he took a shallop and went 
out with the ship a league or two to sea, and called for all 
Lyford's and Oldham's letters." The master of the ship was 
William Pierce,^ a steadfast friend of the colony, who well 
knew what was going on both in England and here, and who 
" afforded him all the assistance he could." They found more 
than twenty of Lyford's letters — " many of them large, and 
full of slanders and false accusations tending not only to the 
prejudice" of the Pilgrim commonwealth, but its "ruin and 
utter subversion." Of those letters they made careful cop- 
ies before permitting them to proceed. Some of the most 
important they retained for testimony, sending the copies 
instead of the originals. In a letter of his to a minister, who 
seems to have been one of those " forward preachers " re- 
ferred to by Robinson, they found, inclosed, his copies of two 
letters which he had found lying sealed in the cabin of the 
Charity^ and had ventured to open — one from a gentleman 
in England to Elder Brewster, the other from Winslow to 
Pastor Robinson in Holland. Those copies, with " many 

' William Pierce was master of the Paragon (p. 383), and then of the Anne 
(p. 384). He had the best of opportunities for becoming acquainted with the 
Pilgrims, and with the adverse faction among the Adventurers and in the col- 
ony. Oldham and others of " the particulars" were passengers under him 
in their coming over. He had been a passenger with Lj'ford on the Charity, 
which he was to command on her home voyage. Several times afterward he 
visited Plymouth. 

This Captain William Pierce is to be distinguished from John Pierce, who 
was one of the Adventurers. The patent of 1621 from the President and 
Council of New England was granted to "John Pierce and his associates " 
in trust for the benefit of the colony. He afterward obtained from the same 
council another patent which would have made him a lord proprietor, under 
whom all settlers were to hold their lands, but which, after some disasters, 
he sold to the company. 



408 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. XYIII. 

scuiTilous and flouting annotations," he was now sending to 
his friend, the known adversary of Brewster and of Robin- 
son, It was toward evening when the ship went out of 
Plymouth harbor, and in tlie night the governor returned. 

For a few days there was some appearance of consterna- 
tion among the conspirators, Tliey seemed to fear that their 
plans had been discovered. But as the governor said noth- 
ing, their anxiety began to be relieved, and, having con- 
cluded that he followed the ship that evening only to dis- 
patch his own letters, they took courage. After a while they 
" were as brisk as ever," not aware that the government 
was watching them, and was waiting " to let things ripen." 
That waiting was not without some foresight of what would 
be attempted ; for among the letters which had been exam- 
ined was one in which a partner in the conspiracy " had 
written that Mr. Oldham and Mr. Lyford intended a ref- 
ormation in church and commonwealth, and that, as soon as 
the ship was gone, they intended to join together and have 
the sacraments." " Reformation in the commonwealth " 
could mean nothing else than a violent subversion of the 
government which had grown out of the compact in the 
cabin of the 3Iayflo%oer. "Reformation in church," intro- 
ducing the ministration of sacraments by Lyford, could 
mean nothing less than a suppression of the detested Sep- 
aration, that the ideas and practices of ecclesiastical Nation- 
alism might come in. That Church of England for which 
reforming Puritans and Pontifical conservatives were equally 
vehement against the schismatic Brownists, Barrowists, Do- 
natists, or by whatever other reproachful names they might 
be called, was to be set up in New England by the religious 
zeal of John Oldham and the purity of John Lyford. 

With no great lapse of time things ripened. The conspir- 
ators, " thinking they were now strong enough, began to 
pick quarrels at every thing. It had not yet become safe, 
in Plymouth, to dispense Avith the nightly watch, and all 
able-bodied men were required to take their turns, under the 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 409 

command of Captain Stanclish, in guarding the repose of the 
village. Oldham, being called to that service in his tui'n, 
took the opportunity to raise a quarrel with the captain, 
calling him " rascal " and " beggarly rascal," and drawing 
his knife at him, with no other provocation than that of hav- 
ing been required to do his duty. So great and so noisy 
was the tumult that the governor, hearing it, " sent to quiet 
it." Oldham was not to be quieted by a word. " He ramp- 
ed more like a furious beast than a man, called them all 
'traitors' and 'rebels,' " and used other opprobrious language 
too foul to be recorded ; " but, after he was clapt up a wliile, 
he came to liimself, and, with some slight punishment, was 
let go upon his behavior, for further censure." In other 
words, Oldham's conduct in relation to the order and gov- 
ernment of the colony was to be further investigated and ju- 
dicially passed upon. 

The crisis came. " Lyford and his accomplices, without 
even speaking .one word to governor, church, or elder, with- 
drew themselves, and set up a public meeting apart, on the 
Lord's day, with sundry such insolent carriages, too long 
here to relate." They were " beginning now publicly to act 
what privately they had been long plotting." Let us not 
suppose that they were acting in the name or in the interest 
of religious liberty. Far from them was the thought of as- 
serting the now universally acknowledged right of every 
man to worship God under such forms and in such associa- 
tions as seem best to his conscience. That setting uj) of a 
public meeting on the Lord's day was the intrusion, not of 
liberty, but of the national-church theory; and it signified 
that the Pilgrims, after their twelve years of exile in Hol- 
land, and with three thousand miles of ocean between them 
and England, were still within the jurisdiction of the eccle- 
siastical Nationalism from which they fled so long ago. 

Evidently the time had come for decisive measures. "The 
governor called a court, and summoned the whole company 
to appear." It was a General Court — a town-meeting. Ly- 



410 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII, 

ford and Oldham were charged with having conspired to 
subvert the commonwealth. " But they were stiff, and stood 
resolutely upon the denial of most things, and required 
proof" Reserving to a later stage the most conclusive evi- 
dence in the case, the prosecution first jjroduced the letters 
from England concerning the plans there formed against the 
colony, and argued from "the doings and practices here" 
of those two men that they were agents or partners of the 
faction there. How injurious and malicious their plot was 
against the peace of the colony, " both in res^^ect of its civil 
and church state," they could not but know; "for they and 
all the world knew" that the people of Plymouth — the Pil- 
grims — " came hither to enjoy the liberty of their conscience 
and the free use of God's ordinances" — a liberty of which 
the conspirators were seeking to deprive them. For that 
end the men of Plymouth " had ventured their lives and 
passed through much hardship hitherto." For that end, 
" they and their friends had borne the charge of these begin- 
nings, which Avas not small." Lyford was told that he had 
been sent over, with " his great family," at the expense of 
the colony, and was maintained out of their means; that he 
had, by his own choice and profession, become a covenanted 
member of their church, and was in all respects counted 
among them ; and that " for him to plot against them and 
seek their ruin was most unjust and perfidious." Oldham 
and the others who like him had " come over at their own 
charge, and were on their particular," Avere reminded that 
they had been received in courtesy by the plantation when 
" they came to seek shelter and protection, . . . not being 
able to stand alone;" and they were likened to "the hedge- 
hog in the fable, whom the cony in a stormy day received 
into her burrow." As the hedgehog " would not be content 
to take part, but in the end, with her sharp pricks, forced the 
poor cony to forsake her own burrow, so these men, with 
the like injustice, endeavored to do the same to those that 
entertained them." 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTvS OF NATIONALISM. 411 

No mention having been made of intercepted letters, Ly- 
ford ventured to deny that he had any thing to do with 
those in England who were adversaries of the colony, and 
aifected much surprise at being charged with that and other 
things. " Then his letters were produced and some of them 
read, at which he was struck mute." Oldham's letters were 
few; indeed, "he was so bad a scribe" that what of his writ- 
ing had been intercepted was hardly legible. But he was in 
a rage at the exposure, and "in very high language" threat- 
ened vengeance. Appealing to those whom he supposed to 
be of his party and to be ready for mutiny, he cried, "Now 
show your courage ! You have often complained to me ; 
now is the time, if you will do any thing ; I will stand by 
you !" But there was no response ; " not a man opened his 
mouth." In that silence, " the governor turned his speech 
to ]Mr. Lyford, and asked him if he thought they had done 
evil to open his letters; but he would not say a word, well 
knowing what they might reply." But not deeming him- 
self sufficiently vindicated by Lyford's mute confession, the 
governor proceeded to tell the people why he had taken that 
extreme measure of searching the letters which the conspir- 
ators were sending to England. " He did it as a magistrate, 
and was bound to it by his place, to prevent the mischief 
and ruin that this conspiracy of theirs would bring on this 
poor colony." Then he informed them about the letters 
which Lyford stole from Winslow, and of which he was send- 
ing copies, " with disgraceful annotations," to some of those 
in England who were ad\'ersaries of the Pilgrim common- 
wealth. The exhibition of those copies, and of other letters 
in Lyford's own handwriting, was conclusive; and those 
whom he might have expected to befriend him in the assem- 
bly were silent and ashamed. 

Some of the allegations against the Pilgrim colony, in the 
intercepted letters, are worth repeating for the sake of show- 
ing how they were answered, then and there, in a full assem- 
bly that knew what the facts were. Lyford had alleged 



412 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

that " the church woukl have none to live here but them- 
selves ;" that " neither were any willing so to do if they had 
company to live elsewhere," and that " if there come over 
any honest men that are not of the Separation, they " — the 
Pilgrim planters — "will quickly distaste them." All this, 
with more of the same sort, was pei-emptorily contradicted. 
"They were willing and desirous that any honest men may 
live with them, that will carry themselves peaceably and 
seek the common good, or at least do them no hurt." Thej^ 
affirmed "there are many" — not members of the church — 
"that will not live elsewhere so long as they may live with 
us," As for the assertion that " honest men, not of the Sep- 
aration," were "distasted" and unwelcome, they pronounced 
it " a false calumniation," declaring that " they had many 
[such] among them, Avhom they liked well of, and were glad 
of their company," and that " any such like that should 
come " would be welcome. Such evidence is there that they 
neither intended nor expected to establish a religious or ec- 
clesiastical uniformity. They would gladly receive into their 
commonwealth "all honest men" of peaceable behavior, Avho 
would "seek the common good, or at least do them no hurt." 
All that they demanded was that "the hedgehog" of Na- 
tionalism should not " with her sharp pricks force the poor 
cony to forsake her own burrow." 

What Lyford was proposing that his friends should do in 
order to his intended " reformation in church and common- 
wealth" was full of significance as to the nature and extent 
of the changes that were to be effected. First of all, " the 
Ley den company (Mr. Tiobinson and the rest) must still be 
kept back, or else all will be spoiled; and, lest any of them 
should be taken in privately somewhere on the coast of En- 
gland, they must change the master of the ship (Mr, William 
Pierce), and put another also in Winslow's stead for mer- 
chant." Next the anti-Separatist party must be strengthen- 
ed by emigration and otherwise. Such a number must be 
provided and sent as would be enough to take possession of 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 413 

the colony, and " oversway them here ;" the " particulars " 
must " have voices in all courts and elections, and be free to 
bear any office;" and certain other arrangements, more cun- 
ning than honest, were suggested which " would be a means 
to strengthen this side the more." Then a military man, 
who had been spoken of, should be sent over, and he would 
surely be chosen captain ; " for this Captain Standish " 
(quoth Lyford) " looks like a silly boy, and is in utter con- 
tempt." If the attempt to capture Plymouth by that meth- 
od should not succeed, a distinct settlement should be be- 
gun within three or four miles' distance. In other words, 
if the place could not be taken by stratagem, it must be 
besieged. Finally, by way of giving more urgency to all 
these counsels, the suggestion was made that unless the 
anti-Separatist party in the colony should be reinforced, 
there would be no great hope of its holding out much 
longer. 

Lyford, " after the reading of his letters before the whole 
company," was called upon for such defense or explanation 
as he might offer. He put the blame of what he had done 
upon " Billington and some others," who, he said, had made 
complaints to him, and had given him the information on 
which he acted. Was that — said some one, in behalf of 
the court — a sufficient ground for you thus to accuse and 
traduce us by your letters, and never say a word to us — con- 
sidering the many bonds between you and us? Those whom 
he had thus accused and traduced took up the several par- 
ticulars of accusation, and told him, We desire you, or any 
of your friends and confederates, not to spare us in any thing. 
If you or they have any proof of any corrupt or evil doing 
of ours, the evidence must needs be here present ; for here 
are the whole company and sundry strangers. All the an- 
swer they could get was that he had been abused, as he now 
saw, by the men who had given him information. Billington 
and any whom he named as having informed him, " protest- 
ed that he wi'onged them ;" and while they acknowledged 

E E 



414 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIIl. 

that " they were sometimes drawn to his meetings," they in- 
sisted that tliey had not consented to his revohitionary j^ro- 
posals. 

He was then " dealt with " in respect to " his dissembling 
with them about the church." He was reminded " what a 
large confession he made at his admittance;" how he pro- 
fessed " that he held not himself a minister till he had a new 
calling ;" and how he was now, after so short a time, work- 
ing in opposition to the church, setting np a hostile congre- 
gation, and proposing to administer sacraments by virtue 
of that episcopal ordination which he had so recently re- 
nounced, and all " without ever speaking a word to them 
either as magistrates or as bi'ethren." 

Thus baffled in every attempt at defense, deserted by those 
whom he had regarded as confederates, only his fellow-cul- 
prit Oldham on his side, shut up to the necessity of acknowl- 
edging his baseness, the unhappy man " burst out into tears" 
and made ample confession. "He feared he was a repro- 
bate ; his sins were so great that he doubted God would not 
pardon them ; he was unsavory salt, fit only to be trodden 
under foot; he had so wronged them that he could never 
make amends ; all he had written against them was false both 
for matter and manner." The show of humility and sorrow 
was " with as much fullness as words and tears could express." 

The trial having resulted in so complete a conviction, there 
remained the question, What shall the sentence be ? " The 
court censured them to be expelled the place, Oldham pres- 
ently — though his wife and family had liberty to stay all 
winter, or longer, till he could make provision to remove 
them comfortably." On Lyford, notwithstanding the ex- 
posure of his hypocrisy, the sentence of expulsion was less 
peremptory. He was permitted to remain six months; and 
that delay " was indeed with some eye to his release, if he 
carried himself well in the mean time, and his repentance 
proved sound." He acknowledged that the sentence was less 
than he deserved, and "afterward he confessed his sin pub- 



A.D. 1624.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 415 

licly in the churcli, witli tears, more largely than before." ' 
Such was the charitableness of the Pilgrims toward offend- 
ers, and their readiness to absolve from censure when they 
found a plausible profession of repentance, that they, in con- 
sideration of his tears and his self-humiliation, " began again 
to conceive good thoughts of him," and soon permitted him 
again to exercise his gift of preaching in their assembly. 
"Some tender-hearted men among them" (one of the tender- 
hearted being Deacon Samuel Fuller, their beloved physician) 
" were so taken with his signs of sorrow and repentance, that 
they professed they would fall upon their knees" if so they 
might obtain the remission of his sentence. 

Their charitable trust in the sincerity of his professed re- 
pentance was disappointed. Not half of the six months al- 
lowed to him had passed, when another letter from him to the 
Adventurers fell into the governor's hands (Aug. 22 = Sept. 
l), exposing the extreme duplicity of the man. " I suppose," 
said he, " my letters, or at least the copies of them, are come 
to your hands, for so they here report. If it be so, I j^ray 
you take notice of this, that I have written nothing but what 
is certainly true." Knowing the Puritan zeal and anti-Sepa- 
ratist prejudices of the men to whom he was writing, he ap- 
pealed to them in behalf of " divers poor souls here, destitute 

' Bradford adds : "I shall here put it down, as I find it recorded by some 
who took it from his own words as himself uttered them, acknowledging 
' That he had done very evil and slanderously abused them ; and thinking 
most of the people would take part with him, he thought to carry all by vio- 
lence and strong hand against them. And that God might justly lay inno- 
cent blood to his charge, for he knew not what hurt might have come of these 
his writings ; and [he] blessed God they were stayed. And that he spared 
not to take knowledge from any of any evil that was spoken, but shut his 
eyes and ears against all the good. And if God should make him a vaga- 
bond in the earth, as was Cain, it was but just, for he had sinned in envy and 
malice against his brethren as he did. And he confessed three things to be 
the ground and causes of these his doings : pride, vainglory, and self-love. ' 
Amplifying these heads with many other sad expressions in the particulars 
of them." 



416 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

of the means of salvation," and added fresh calumnies against 
the church. Adopting* a Puritan misrepresentation of Sepa- 
ratist principles, he alleged that the church, though only a 
minority in the colony, " apj^ropriated the ministry to them- 
selves, holding this princij)le that the Lord hath not appoint- 
ed any ordinary ministry for the conversion of those that 
are without." " Some of the poor souls," he said, " have 
with tears complained of this to me, and I was taxed for 
preaching to all in general." At the same time he had his 
fling at the lay preaching of Elder Brewster, and the prophe- 
syings wherewith the brethren were wont to edify one an- 
other. " In truth, they have no ministry here, since they 
came, but such as may be performed by any of you, . . . 
whatsoever great pretenses they make. Herein they equivo- 
cate, as in many other things they do." 

Full of these and other calumnies, the letter went forward 
to its destination ; but with it Bradford sent an ample refu- 
tation. On the last point, especially, the reply was jjungent. 
" He saith we have had no ministry since we came. . . . We 
answer. The more is our wrong, that* our pastor is kept from 
us by these men's means, who then reproach us for it when 
they have done. Yet have we not been wholly destitute of 
the means of salvation, as this man would make the world 
believe ; for our reverend elder hath labored diligently in 
dispensing the Word of God to us before he [Lyford] came, 
and since hath taken equal pains with him in preaching the 
same; and (be it spoken without ostentation) he is not infe- 
rior to Mr. Lyford and some of his betters, either in gifts or 
learning — though he would never be persuaded to take high- 
er ofiice upon him. . . . For ' equivocating,' he may take it 
to himself What the church holds it has manifested to the 
world in all plainness, both in open confession and doctrine 
and in writing." 

Notwithstanding this new provocation, the doubly con- 
victed hypocrite was permitted to remain till the end of his 
six months. But meanwhile the church was sti'Ciia'thened. 



A.D. 1625.] ATTEMPTS OF SEPARATISM. 417 

Some who had stood aloof were brought to a decision by the 
exposure of Lyford's malignity, and asked for admission to 
the covenanted brotherhood, " professing that it was not out 
of the dislike of any thing that they had stood off so long, 
but only out of a desire to fit themselves better for such a 
state." They now chose to unite themselves with the church, 
because " they saw the Lord called for their help." 

The six-months' postponement of Lyford's removal from 
the colony — a postponement which had been granted partly 
out of regard to his wife and children, that their fliight might 
not be in the winter — was ending, when Oldham, with- 
out permission obtained or asked, returned to Plymouth 
(April, 1625), in company with some strangers. His behav- 
ior was so insolent and outrageous that his companions were 
ashamed of him, and rebuked him. But rebuke, even from 
them, inflamed his rage, and the governor found it necessary 
to "commit him till he should be tamer." For his punish- 
ment, afterward, " a guard of musketeers was drawn up, 
through which he was to pass, receiving from every one a 
parting thump with a musket on his rear as he went by." 
He was then " convoyed to the water-side, where a boat was 
ready to carry him away." So they dismissed him with a 
word of exhortation — "Go, and mend your manners." 

It was a singular coincidence that Winslow and William 
Pierce arrived, just then, on their return from England, and 
landed at Plymouth while the whole village was occupied 
with the ceremonies of Oldham's dismissal. They brought 
with them new and abundant proof both of Oldham's machi- 
nations against the colony and of Lyford's extreme deprav- 
ity. In England the}^ had encountered the accusations which 
went over in Lyford's letters, and which were urged by the 
anti-Separatists among the Adventurers. Much bickering 
had they there with the men of that party. Those whose pity 
for the spiritual needs of the colony had moved them to send 
Lj^ford on his unsuccessful mission were clamorous. They 
could not endure to see "a minister, a man so. godly," ac- 



418 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

cused of falsehood. They deemed it a great scandal, and 
threatened a i^rosecution in the courts. A full meeting of 
the Adventurers was called to hear the whole case, and to 
decide all questions concerning it ; and for that meeting two 
moderators were agreed upon beforehand. The moderators 
were " Mr. White, a counselor at law," chosen by Lyford's 
party, and "the Reverend Mr. Hooker" (Thomas Hooker, aft- 
erward of New England), chosen by the other party. At 
the appointed time, "many friends on both sides were brought 
in, so as there was a great assembly." The result was a 
complete discomfiture of the anti-Separatist party by an ex- 
posure of shameful facts in the life of the man with whom 
their cause had been unhappily identified. For that result, 
and the facts which produced it, some at Plymouth were al- 
ready prepared by certain confidential disclosures which Ly- 
ford's wife, in " her grief and sorrow of mind," had made to 
them. 

When Lyford, after his first exposure at Plymouth, and 
the show of penitence which he then made, had been again 
detected in his work of calumnious accusation, his wife, terri- 
fied by his wickedness, and apprehensive that God's provi- 
dence in dealing with such wickedness might bring some 
dire calamity on her and her children,' told the story of her 
wrongs and of her husband's extreme baseness, " to one of the 
deacons and some other of her friends." She could no longer 
endure, without some Christian sympathy, the agony of 
knowing how vile lie had been in his relations with other 
women, both before her marriage to him and through all her 
wedded life. The friends in whom she confided kept her 
secret. But while Winslow and Piei'ce, in London, were 
managing the cause of the colony against Lyford's employ- 
ers, it came to pass that some of the other party in the Com- 
pany of Adventurers had received information concerning 

* The text 2 Sam. xii., 1 1, seemed to her like a divine threatening against 
iier person, which might be executed, if, in their removal from Plymouth, 
thev should fall.iiito the hands of Indians. 



A.D. 1625.] ATTEMPTS OF NATIONALISM. 419 

"his evil carriage in Ireland," and had put Winslow into 
communication with " two godly and grave witnesses who 
would testify the same, if called thereunto, upon their oath." 
The story in detail is too shameful to be narrated here. It 
is enough to repeat what Bradford tells of the procedure in 
that asseiubly of the Adventurers, " with many friends on 
both sides," under the joint moderatorship of Mr. Counselor 
White and Rev. Mr. Hooker. " In handling the former mat- 
ters about the letters, Mr. Winslow, upon provocation, in 
some heat of reply to some of Lyford's defenders, let fall 
these words, 'That he had dealt knavishly.'" Thereupon 
one of the adverse party bade the hearers take notice that 
Winslow "had called a minister of the Gospel a knave," and 
to be ready to testify that fact in a court of law. In the ex- 
citement which ensued, the reputation which that "minister 
of the Gospel" had in Ireland was referred to; "and the 
witnesses were produced, whose persons were so grave, the 
evidence so plain, and the fact so foul (yet delivered in such 
modest and chaste terras, and with such circumstances), as 
struck all his friends mute, and made them all ashamed." 
In conclusion, " the moderators with great gravity declared 
that the former matters gave" the Plymouth people "cause 
enough to refuse him, and to deal with him as they had 
done ; but that these matters made him unmeet forever to 
bear ministry any more, what repentance soever he should 
pretend." With that expression of their opinion, they ad- 
vised " his friends to rest quiet. Thus was this matter end- 
ed." The attempt of Puritanism in the Company to over- 
come Separatism in the colony by sending out a minister 
who should supplant Robinson in the affection and confi- 
dence of the Pilgrims, had come to naught. 

Such were the tidings which Winslow and Pierce brought 
to Plymouth at the moment when the colony was expelling 
Oldham the second time. Lyford and his family settled 
down, for a time, Avith Oldham and a few others, at Nan- 
tasket, the southern cape of Boston harbor. From that 



420 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAISfD CHURCHES. [CH. XVIII. 

place be and tliey soon removed to Cape Ann, as pioneers of 
a colony to be established on other than Separatist principles. 
Thence — probably not long after his character had begun to 
be more thoroughly understood in the new settlement and 
among its patrons — he removed to a greater distance. Brad- 
ford says : " Whether for hope of greater profit, or what 
ends else, I know not, he left his friends that followed him, 
and went to Virginia, where he shortly after died, and so I 
leave him to the Lord." 

Oldham, about a year and a half from the date of that in- 
solent behavior of his which was so promptly and fitly pun- 
ished by the Plymouth government, had embarked with many 
other passengers for a voyage to Virginia. He found him- 
self, with them, in great peril of shipwreck "on the shoals of 
Cape Cod." Despairing of life, some of them, and he among 
them, betook themselves to prayer, and to the mutual con- 
fession of " such sins as did most burden them." On that 
occasion, as was reported by "some of good credit who were 
themselves partners in the same dangers," he made " a free 
and large confession of the wrongs and hurt he had done to 
the people and church" in Plymouth. Delivered from that 
danger, "he afterward carried himself fairly toward them, 
and acknowledged the hand of God to be with them, and 
seemed to have an honorable respect of them." They, on 
their part, retained no grudge against him. He " so far 
made his peace with them that he had liberty to go and 
come," and to "converse" or transact business "with them 
at his pleasure."^ 

Thus the feeble church of Christ at Plymouth held its 
ground, and no weapon that was formed against it prospered. 

1 Oldham lived till IfioG, and was then murdered by Indians, on his own 
vessel, near Block Island. His death was among the causes of the Pequot 
War. 



A.D. 1625.] THE PILGRIMS ABANDONED BY PUBITANS. 421 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PILGRIM COLONY ABANDONED BY THE PURITAN ADVENT- 
URERS. PROSPERITY AT PLYMOUTH. — DEATH OF 

ROBINSON. THE LEYDEN REMNANT. 

Had the colony yielded speedy and large profits to the 
capital invested in it, the anti-Separatist Adventurers might, 
perhaps, have forgotten their scruples about the ecclesiastical 
unsoundness of the Pilgrims. A brilliant prospect of com- 
mercial success might have tempted them to tamper with 
their convictions. But, as things came to pass, no such 
temptation befell them. From the purchase of the Speedwell 
onward, there had been a series of disasters. Larger invest- 
ments were continually demanded, but the returns in furs 
and fish had fallen short of expectations which seemed rea- 
sonable at the beginning. A superstitious abhorrence of 
Brownism might lead some to believe that the providence 
of God was against an enterprise so tainted with the sin of 
schism. Worldly wisdom might suggest that a colony of 
Separatists, who rejected not only " the ceremonies and the 
vestments" and the prelatical government, but the National 
Church itself, could not be made attractive to any large num- 
ber of respectable Englishmen, and therefore could not flour- 
ish. Such were the mingled motives which induced the 
sending of Lyford to Plymouth. The ignominious failure 
of his mission was a discouragement to the zealous Puritans 
in the Company of Adventurers; but for all that their antip- 
athy to Brownism was not overcome. 

After the meeting in which Lyford's character was so fa- 
tally exposed, the majority of the Adventurers withdrew 
their patronage from the colony and their co-operation from 
the enterprise. In eftect the Company, though not yet form- 
ally dissolved, was broken to pieces. The minority, who had 



422 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH, XIX. 

been, tlirough all discouragements, steadfast friends of the 
Pilgrim church and colony, did not forsake them in this 
emergency. Unwilling to make any additional investment 
in a concern which two thirds of their partners had deserted, 
they sent, nevertheless, a small supply of goods, which, in- 
stead of going into the common stock, were to be sold on 
their private account. The malcontent Adventurers, on the 
other hand, sent out a vessel which was to co-operate with 
Oldham and Lyford and their followers in the fishery at 
Cape Ann. Letters were sent in which the views and pur- 
poses of each of those parties were explained. 

The malcontents, in a letter subscribed by some of them 
professing to represent the rest, set forth " certain reasons of 
their breaking off from the plantation," and offered " certain 
conditions " on which they were willing to continue their 
partnership. The "reasons of their breaking off" were two. 
First, they alleged that the Pilgrims had " dissembled with 
his majesty in their petition, and with the Adventurers, about 
the French discipline;" and, secondly, that they had "received 
a man into their church who, in his confession, renounced all 
universal, national, and diocesan churches;" it being under- 
stood that Lyford, their informant, was himself the man. 
Therefore, inasmuch as the Pilgrims, while " denying the 
name of Brownists," were evidently conducting their church 
affairs according to the principles stigmatized by that name, 
" we," said the malcontent Adventurers, " should sin against 
God in building up such a people." In brief, they would 
not be partakers of other men's sins ; and, to Puritan thought, 
the Brownist Separation from that National Church of En- 
gland which all good men were laboring to reform, was the 
very sin of schism. If there were to be any more co-opera- 
tion between them and the colony, certain concessions must 
be made to their " dislikes." " First, that as we are partners 
in trade, so we may be in government there — as the patent 
doth give us power. Secondly, that the French discipline 
may be practiced in the plantation, as well in the circum- 



A. D. 1625. J THE PILGRIMS ABANDONED BY PURITANS. 423 

stances thereof ns in the substance ; whereby the scandalous 
name of the Brownists, and other church differences, may be 
taken away. Lastly, that Mr. Robinson and his company 
may not go over to our plantation unless he and they will 
reconcile themselves to our church by a recantation under 
their hands." In short, what those malcontents demanded 
was that the civil autonomy which the Pilgrims had main- 
tained under their compact in the cabin of the Mayflower 
should be abolished to make room for the government of a 
commercial company ; and that the ecclesiastical system of 
the colony should be Puritanism and not Separatism. 

No such concessions would the men of Plymouth make. 
In what terms they expressed their rejection of the proposal 
we are not informed, for only that portion of their letter has 
been preserved which replies to the charge of dissimulation 
concerning their agreement with the French Protestant 
churches.^ On that point they said: "Whereas you tax us 
for dissembling with his majesty and the Adventurers about 
the French discipline, you do us wrong ; for we both hold 
and practice the discipline of the French and other Reformed 
churches (as they have published the same in the ' Harmony 
of Confessions') according to our means, in effect and sub- 
stance. But whereas you would tie us to the French disci- 
pline in every circumstance, you derogate from the liberty 
we have in Christ Jesus. The apostle Paul would have 
none to follow him in any thing but wherein he follows 
Christ; much less ought any Christian or church in the 

' The charge of dissimulation was founded on the note of explanation which 
they sent from Leyden to Sir John Wolstenholme, for him to use at his dis- 
cretion, and wliich he did not use "lest he should spoil all." See ante, 
p. 267, 268. The note was in these words: '•Touching the ecclesiastical 
ministry, namely, of pastors for teaching, elders for ruling, and deacons for 
distributing the church's contribution ; as also for the two sacraments — 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper — we do wholly and in all points agree with 
the French Reformed churches, according to their public confession of faith." 
In the alternative form of the note, they added a specification of "some small 
differences to be found in our practifes." 



424 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

world to do it. The French may err, we may err, and othei 
churches may err, and doubtless do in many circumstances. 
That honor, therefore, belongs only to the infallible Word of 
God and pure Testament of Christ, to be propounded and 
followed as the only rule and pattern for direction herein, to 
all churches and Christians. And it is too great arrogancy 
for any man or any church to think that he or they have so 
sounded the Word of God to the bottom as precisely to set 
down the church's discipline without error in substance or 
circumstance, so that no other without blame may digress 
or differ in any thing from the same. And it is not difficult 
to show that the Reformed churches differ in many circum- 
stances among themselves." So steadfastly did that church 
insist upon its liberty ; and so resolutely did it refuse to be 
measured by any standard other than the Scriptures. 

From the friendly and faithful minority of Adventurers 
there came a large epistle addressed "To our beloved friends, 
Mr. William Bradford, Mr. Isaac Allerton, Mr. William Brew- 
ster, and the rest of the general society of Plymouth in New 
England." That letter, so full of Christian wisdom and of a 
purely Christian spirit, while it shows what the men were 
whose confidence and love the Pilgrims, " unknown by face," 
had gained, is a most honorable testimony to the character 
of the men to whom it was addressed. The history of the 
church in Plymouth would be incomplete without it. 

" Though the thing we feared be come upon us, and the 
evils we strove against have overtaken us, we can not forget 
you, nor our friendship and fellowship which together we 
have had some years ; wherein, though our expressions have 
been small, yet our hearty affections toward you (unknown 
by face) have been no less than to our nearest friends — yea, 
even to ourselves. And though your and our friend, Mr. 
Winslow, can tell you the state of things here, and what hath 
befallen us, yet — lest we should seem to neglect you to whom, 
by a wonderful providence of God, we are so nearly united 
— we have thought good once more to write unto you ; first. 



A.D. 1625.] THE PILGRIMS ABANDONED BY PURITANS. 425 

to show you what is here befallen; secondly, the reason and 
cause of it ; thirdly, our jjurposes and desires toward you 
hereafter. 

"The former course for the generality^ here is wholly dis- 
solved ; and whereas you and we were formerly sharers and 
partners in all voyages and dealings, this way is now so no 
more, but you and we are left to bethink ourselves what 
course to take in the future that our lives and our moneys be 
not lost. . . . 

"The reasons and causes of this alteration have been 
these : First and mainly, the many crosses and losses and 
abuses by sea and seamen, which have caused us to run into 
so much charge and debts and engagements, as we were not 
able to go on without impoverishing ourselves, and much 
hindering if not spoiling our trades and callings here — unless 
our estates had been greater, or our associates had cloven 
better to us. Secondly, as there hath been a faction and 
siding among us more than two years, so now there is an ut- 
ter breach and sequestration among us, and in two parts of 
us^ a full desertion and forsaking of you, without any intent 
or purpose of meddling more with you. And though Ave are 
persuaded the main cause of this their doing is want of 
money (for need whereof men use to make many excuses), 
yet other things are by many pretended, and not without 
some color urged — which are these : First, a distaste of you 
there, for that you are, as they affirm, Brownists, condemn- 
ing all other persons and churches but those of your own 
way ; tliat you are contentious and cruel toward such as in 
all points, both civil and religious, jump not with you; and 
that you are negligent, careless, wasteful, and spend your 



' The words •'general" and "generality" seem to have been used by 
tlie Pilgrims and their friends as meaning what we mean by such ^vords as 
" partnership," " company," and "community." In this instance, "the gen- 
erality" is the joint-stock company of Merchant Adventurers. 

^ Two thirds of the wliole niimlier. 



426 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

time in idleness and talking and conferring ;i — secondly, a 
distaste and personal contempt of us for taking your parts 
and striving to defend you and make the best of all matters 
touching you, insomuch as it is hard to say whether you or 
we are least loved of them. 

" Now Avhat use either you or we may make of these 
things remaineth to be considered ; and the more for that 
we know the hand of God to be present in all these things; 
and he, no doubt, would admonish us of something which is 
not yet so looked to and taken to heart as it should be. 
And though it be now too late for us or you to prevent or 
stay these things, yet it is not too late to exercise patience, 
wisdom, and conscience in bearing them, and in carrying 
ourselves in and under them for time to come. And as we 
stand ready to embrace all occasions that may tend to the 
furtherance of so hopeful a work, rather admiring at what is 
than grudging at what is not, so it must rest in you to make 
all good again. And if in nothing else you can be approved, 
yet let your honesty and conscience be still approved, and 
lose not one jot of your innocence amid your many crosses 
and afflictions. Surely, if you upon this alteration behave 
yourselves wisely and go on fairly, as men whose hope is 
not in this life, you shall need no other weapon to wound 
your adversaries; for when your righteousness is revealed 
as the light, they shall cover their faces Avith shame that 
causelessly sought your overthrow. 

" And although we hope you need not our counsel in these 
things, having learned of God how to behave yourselves in 

' This, it will be remembered, was Weston's complaint after that first win- 
ter of struggle with disease and death. See ante, p. 850, 351, 355. It 
reminds us of Pharaoh's complaint against the Hebrews: " Ye are idle, ye 
are idle, therefore ye say. Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord." Exod. 
v., 17. Notwithstanding the exposure of Lyford's character, his letters, with 
those from Oldham, and perhaps from other malcontents in the colony, seem 
to have left, even upon the authors of this letter, an impression that such 
accusations were "not without some color urged." 



A.D. 1625.] THE PILGRIMS ABANDONED BY PURITANS. 421 

all states in this world, yet a Avord for your advice and 
direction, to spur those forward who, we hope, run well 
already : 

" First, seeing our generality here is dissolved, let yours be 
the more firm. Do not you like carnal people who run into 
inconveniences and evils by examples, but rather be warned 
by your harms to cleave faster together hereafter. Take 
heed of long and sharp disputes and oppositions ; give no 
passage to the waters — no, not a tittle. Let not hatred or 
heart-burning be harbored in the heart of any of you one mo- 
ment; but forgive and forget all former failings and abuses, 
and renew your love and friendship together daily. There 
is often more sound friendship and sweeter fellowship in af- 
flictions and crosses than in prosperity and favors; and there 
is reason for it, because envy flietli away when there is noth- 
ing but necessities to be looked on, but it is always a bold 
guest where prosperity shows itself 

"Although we here, who are hedged about with so many 
favors and helps in worldly things and comforts, forget friend- 
ship and love, and fall out oftentimes for trifles — you must 
not do so, but must in these things turn a new leaf and be of 
another spirit. We here can fiiU out with a friend and lose 
him to-day, and find another to-morrow ; but you can not do 
so — you have no such choice — you must make much of them 
you have, and count him a very good friend who is not your 
professed enemy. We have a trade and custom of talebear- 
ing, whispering, and changing old friends I'or new, and these 
things with us are incurable; but you who do, as it were, be- 
gin a new world, and lay the foundation of sound piety and 
humanity for others who are to follow, must sufter no such 
weeds in your garden, but nip them in the head and cast 
them out forever; and must follow peace and study quiet- 
ness, having fervent love among yourselves as a perfect and 
entire bond to uphold you when all else fails you. . . . 

"If any among you have still a witlidrawing heart, aiul 
will be all to himself and nothing to his neighbor, let him 



428 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CEIUECHES. [CH. XIX. 

thiuk of these things : the providence of God in bringing 
you there together; his marvelous preserving you from so 
many dangers; tlie hopes that yet are of effecting somewhat 
for yourselves, and more for your posterity, if hand join in 
hand ; the woeful estate of him that is alone, esjaecially in a 
wilderness ; the succor and comfort which the generality can 
daily afford, . . . pulling together with the varieties of trades 
and faculties employed by sea and land, the gain of every 
one stretching itself to all ; but such as withdraw themselves, 
tempting God and despising their neighbors, must look for 
no share or part in any of these things — but alone they 
must work, and alone they must eat, and alone they must be 
sick and die; or else alone return to England, and there cry 
out of the country and the people, counting the one fruitless 
and the other merciless. Besides all these things, the con- 
science of making restitution, and paying those debts and 
charges which have befallen to bring you there and send 
those things to you which you have had, must hold you to- 
gether. . . . 

"In a word : we think it but reason that all such things as 
there are, appertaining to the general, be kept aiul preserved 
together, and rather increased daily than any way dispersed 
or embezzled away for any private ends or intents whatso- 
ever. AVe advise that, after your necessities are served, you 
gather together such commodities as the country yields, and 
send them over, to pay debts and clear engagements here, 
which are not less than £1400 — all which debts, besides ad- 
ventures,^ have been made about general commodities and 
implements — and for Avhich divers of us stand more or less 
engaged. And we dare say of you that you Avill do the best 
you can to free and unburden us who for your sakes and help 
are so much hazarded in our estates and names. If tliere be 
any that will withdraw liimself from the general, as he must 
not have nor use any of the general's goods, so it is but rea- 

' Capital invested in the stock of the company. 



A.D. 1625.] THE PILGRIMS ABANDONED BY PURITANS, 429 

son that he give sufficient security for payment of so much 
of the debts as his part cometh to. 

" In a word : since it falleth out that all things between us 
are as you see, let us all endeavor to keep a fair and honest 
course, and see what time will bring forth, and how God in 
his providence will work for us. We are still persuaded yoic 
are the 2yeople that must make a plantation and erect a city in 
those remote places, when all others fail and return; and your 
experience of God's providence and preservation of you is 
such that we hope your hearts will not now fail you. 
Though your friends should forsake you (which we ourselves 
shall not do while we live, so long as your honesty so well 
appeareth), yet surely help would arise from some other 
place while you wait on God with uprightness. 

"To conclude: as you are especially now to renew your 
love one to another, so we advise you, as your friends, to 
these particulars. First, let all sharpness, reprehensions, and 
corrections of opposite persons be still used sparingly, and 
take no advantage against any for any by-respects; but rather 
wait for their mending among you, than mend them your- 
selves by thrusting away any of whom there is hope of 
good to be had. Secondly, make your corporation as formal 
as you can, under the name of ' the Society of Plymouth in 
New England,' allowing some peculiar privileges to all the 
members thereof, according to the tenure of the patents. 
Thirdly, let your practices and course in religion, in the 
church, be made complete and full ; let all that fear God 
among you join themselves thereunto without delay; and 
let all the ordinances of God be used completely in the 
church, without longer waiting upon uncertainties or keep- 
ing the gap open for opposites. Fourthly, let the worship 
and service of God be strictly kept on the Sabbath, and — 
both together and asunder — let the day be sanctified ; and 
let your care be seen on the working days, every where and 
upon all occasions, to set forward the service of God. And, 
lastly, be you all entreated to walk so circumspectly and 

F F 



OAITV yoiu^olvos so uprightly in all A"xnu" ujvyjis as ihai uv^ 
man i«i»y nuiko any just oxwptious ajiaiust yv>u, ;«ul, tnoiv 
csjHHnaUy. that tho tavov and oouutonauoo v>f (.uhI tuay bo 
tow^wl you» aud you «\ay s;iy with Davul, * Though n\Y ta 
thor auvl n»y uunhor shoulvl lo»"s;>ko n\o. yot tho Loui will 
tako u\o up/ 

. . . "inHxl tViouds, havo an ovo raihor on your ill-vlosorv- 
iug* at Vnni's hand than on tho tailings of your tVionds to* 
waul you; ami »-;ut vm him with j^ationoo and good oou- 
scionoo, nithor adnuring his moivios than ivpining at his 
oiwfisos^ with tho assui^noo of laith that what is wjvuting 
horo shall Ih> n»avlo up in glory a thousaudtold. G<» v>n, 
gvHHi tVionds, oomtortably : pluok up your hearts ohoortuUy, 
a«d quit yoursolvos liko mon in all your vlithouUios» that — 
notwithstanding all disploasuiv aiul throats of mon — tho 
work may gv on which you ar\^ aln^ut, auvl which is so nuich 
^^r tho glory of Irv^nl and tho furtherance of our cv>untrymen, 
as that a n^an may with more oouxfon oxjhmuI his Uto in it 
than live tho litv* v>f a Methuselah in wasting the plenty of a 
tilloil laud or oatinsj the fruit ot a ijrvMvn ttw."^ 



* An st- < Wt\^r »* s^>\^t in Uravitv^rvJV tlisu>r\% I hsw^ tr«n- 

swlyyl it ; - -.x* tV\M« lin»«.it\>t\l'!! "l^^^^^-U1H^k" (Msss. ItisUMrioiU 

0V'4fcct»o»»s» iii.. 5^-S4\ \Vhik> sbri^i^txjir ii by th<? iMwisjinm of Iww snJ 

vh«K?s«U I iww )»fe\\ in « ttsni- t<?w i«;*»mx^ t»k<?n ttw lilwrty «.>t" olva«»ging 
f wxMxi* in * S!Wit^?»KX\ ssHi v^f i^r.V - .o xrv\rd tor sn- 

. ix?«\K''Jr mi^t v>thon> is* h,tx>? Kv vO. k» jvaiisn* snd 

inquiiv tvvr ih<? nwwniivjj. 

Tt» Wtw xr3»s s\>\vaoribe«J by Rwr — " Jsnws ShMey ^sii^X^' IWng thi? tira 
HMWie. It vrtis in th* hMHlxrrittn^ of Robert Onshnwn : *»h\ |v»rts ixf ir>. at 
k«$*« *n? in his styk of <x^n{«o$tttoiu In a j^s^hmv*! Wtw n> BraviSxxi, writ- 
tw» iSxir vi\A-s Istw vl"Vv\ 52^ t-X {v\ 0»shnwn s»ys : " My tTtWhi «Kt yowr 
ft-'J^^Hi. Mr, S}*03rW. w ., sttht?iv . . tne. oxtw 

with KSArss t\x wntv^ tv , ^ . s^Hi tv> s;^: - -.m. He 

jw^nnnbers his Kxiwty snvi : - ks"* his Us; - - so \\m». sikI to 

j»U the wst >*-ho ktx-e o«r vvr, - ,. ,s<\" " U'.> .v>\^ roxraixi »s 

h*s Kwft Sttch ** I <»» 1*04 iiKkevi e^jqxross. . . . lie hsth s>o«»<e<inH>s W«t 



A.n. M5'Jf». I I'lUriANH AMANItON 'I UK IMI'.IMM <;ol,MNV. i'<l\ 

TIk! "ruUJc, (tlotli, lioK«;, hliocH, l<;uUi<!r," lUi'l ol,li«;r <;orri- 
fri<;<lit,i('H, Hciit/ hy iIioh*- IriftiMlM, wcvc !,'» f><! [»!ii'l (or at, pr'K;<'M 
" f/lioilj^lil' lUii'i'aHoiialilc by HoffKj;" l»i<l, t,l(<; ii<!W i;j<;l,li<)<l oi' 
l,niiiH!i<;t,in^ I-Ik; IdiMiiichH Hc.fMiH lo \niv<: iMMin nally mii'li 
\)c\.U'V lli.'iti tlial, wlii'-l) if, Mi(|)<;rKt'<li;<). It waw bt!tt<!i' l.o <l<;al 
wil.li iii(livi<lii;i.l iii< rrliatitH ifiati wil,li an ill-aHHorii!(l cornpariy 
of A<lv<;(i1,itr< TH. (>ikii\h MCtit hy (Vu;)i<Ih i;i I/ondon, <;»i tiKjii' 
privaUi aofioiiiit,, u'<!r<' |)!n<;li!i,H(!'i t>y " fjn! J4(;ii(;ralit-y," and 
w<!n! ilicn «iiKi>f)W!<l ol' to iii<livi<liialH l;y Halo or oilicrwino. 
TlKin; \)cjuf^ no lon^(;r any at,i<!tnpl/ to maintain a p-'utnor- 
Hliii>"in nil voya'^cH and d<;alingH" Ituiwcvn "tl)<; j.^<!»i<;rality " 
at riyrriodtli and tlir; otfi<;r '' gcftiorality " in li(»ndon, it ojdy 
r(!tnain<Ml to diH|)OH(! of *;ntHtanding cn^aj^'jrncntK, and to 
wind np the <;ofi<;<;rnH of that hrokcn f>ai'tn(;rMhip at the «;ar- 
licHt (;f>nv(!nic!nt day. licfon! rnidwunirrM;!', th*; f.olony wah 
abh; to Hond, in fjart payment for the f^oodn wlii';|i it liad 
r<'C('iv<;d f'roiM Sli<Tl<-y and tin; othcrH, " aH iriueh t^eaver- and 
other (lUH aH would artioiuil, to upward oi' two }iiindr<'d and 
Hev(!nty-Keveii ponndH Hl,erlin;^," at th(; laHt year'M pn<Hi»." ' 

XHOO III, </(i<; Mill'! (or ollxir in'-.ii to ii(lv<',iit,iir<! in thi» huttincHH — hI) Ui i\mw 
t,ll<;rri on. H<-. Ii.itli, iii'liM;<), liy liiii Cii;"; l)<!iirl<j<lfM;i-,>i \ti;i:u l.lj<; only j/lu<; f/f 
tli<; ('.iiui]iiuiy." 

'I'IiIm provcf] to l)(! r'ticlirrian'H IttHt I«Ux5r, " II« wrote," ii;ti<l lirinironJ, 
"rjf tli<! HickncHH (uul |)roli;il)ility r/f thu ilcfiUi f;f unothcr, but kn<!W not tJmt 
hi» own WHM Ko n<;(ir, . . . H<; piirpoKc^l t<» (;<! with uh ' th<s rn;xt »(hij;H ;' t;ut 
tlio //onl <li'l olln;rwiK(! <liH(ioi«;, jin'l (iii'l ii((j)oint<',il tiini « ii/i:it.U:r joiirn'jy t<> 
a l)<;ft<!r pjucit. " Hli(!rl<;y r«if:ov(!r'!il, )tn<l ';ontinri<;(l ior niitny y<!iirH a hUuuI- 
i'ltht (Vi<!nil of I'lymontli (itnl i(« ctnjrcJi. 

' 'I'hat^ preciouH Cnjij^lit oi' ('iir» wah w;nt in tin; /M/Jj: Jamm, tin; \)\uuw,ti 
'null', ii.'iHi) wiiicli, (if'Ujr vjirioiiK dinanUirH on thin t(i(J« ofth« Atlantic, Itav- 
itiK rundured littlo mr\\w, to tin; colony, Jnt'i imunim tin; projM;rty of 'I'hornitH 
M(;t';ln;r, one of th'iHi; four A(lvcntur«;rH wlio w(jr<; Hiill ]iU'Aii,''A to tlw; csiwrn. 
In 'orripany will) u litr/<<;r vckmjI, «ln! \>iimi'.t\ «af';iy ov<;r tin; o'f';an ; hut in 
tin; I'/nj^linh f,'hann<!l, and alinoMt within »»ij(l)l of old /'ly/noutli »*tranj,(<} ah 
th« Htory »(X!rri« at tliiw day— hIkj wax "taken \iy a Turk't man-of-war and 
carried into HallcHj, wlicrc tlu; inantcr atnl men were m;MJe xIaveH, and many 
of the heaver Mkinx were Kold for four pcnw a \n*icjt " — fur» not >>cing hi|(hJy 



4:^2 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

" It pleased the Lord to give the plantation peace and 
health and contented minds;" and when their summer's 
work was ended, and their crops were gathered in, " they 
had corn sufficient and some to spare, with other food." 
After the Indian harvest, " when the time of the year begins 
to grow tempestuous," they loaded one of their two shallops 
with corn, and sent her, under the command of Winslow, 
with only landmen for sailors, "forty or fifty leagues to the 
eastward, up a river called Kennebec," to trade with the 
savages. The loaded shallop, having " a little deck over her 
midships to keep the corn dry," went safely through the 
autumn storms (though " the men were fain to stand it out 
all weathers without shelter"), and "brought home seven 
hundred pounds of beaver besides some other furs." Instead 
of buying coi'n from the Indians with "trucking stuff" im- 
ported from Europe (as they had been formerly compelled 
to do), they were exchanging the surplus product of their 
corn-fields for furs to be sold in England. Under God they 
could now rely on their "innocent trade of husbandry," not 
only to yield them food, but to make them independent of 
the partners who had deserted them. 

Meanwhile, there being more need than ever of some one 
to represent the colony in London, Captain Standish had 
been commissioned to perform that service. He w^as to con- 
fer with such of the Adventurers as were still friendly to 
the Pilgrim churcli and commonwealth, and Avas also the 
bearer of a memorial to " the Right Honorable his Majesty's 
Council for New England." The memorial, subscribed by 
the governor (June 28 = July 8), "with the knowledge, con- 
sent, and humble request of the w'hole plantation," represent- 
ed, briefly and modestly, what they had done in less than 
five years, "having put some life into this then dreaded de- 
sign ;" and what hardships " incident to the raw and imma- 



valued on the African coast. How much of the loss was sustained by the 
colony does not appear ; but to Fletcher that disaster was ruin. 



A.D. 1625.] UKITANS ABANDON THE PILGRIM COLONY. 433 

ture beginning of such great exertions" they had undergone 
and were yet to undergo. It comijlained, " We are now left 
and forsaken of our Adventurers, who will neither supply us 
with necessaries for our subsistence, nor suffer others that 
would be willing ; neither can we be at liberty to deal with 
others or provide for ourselves, but they keep us tied to 
them and yet will be loose from us ; they have not only cast 
us off, but entered into particular course of trading, and have 
by violence and force taken at their pleasure our possession 
at Cape Ann ;' traducing us with unjust and dishonest clam- 
ors abroad, disturbing our peace at home, and some of them 
threatening that if ever we grow to any good estate they 
will then nip us in the head." The request of the memorial 
was that, by the intervention of the Council for New En- 
gland, those Adventurers might be brought to a final settle- 
ment and division. 

" Our people," said Bradford in a private letter (June 
9 = 19), "will never agree any way again to unite with the 
Company who have cast them off with such reproach and con- 
tempt, and have also returned their bills and all debts upon 
their heads." " I think it best to press a clearance with the 
Company, either by coming to a dividend, or by some other 
indifferent course or composition. The longer we hang and 
continue in this confused and lingering condition, the worse 
it will be, for it takes away from men all heart and courage 
to do any thing. Notwithstanding any persuasion to the 
contrary, many protest they will never build houses, fence 
grounds, or plant fruits for those who not only forsake them, 
but use them as enemies. . . . Whereas if they knew what they 
should trust to, the place would quickly grow and flourish 
with plenty." 

- A patent for Cape Ann had been taken out in the names of Robert 
Cushman and Edward Winslow for themselves and their associates in Jan- 
uary, 1624. Under that patent the Plymouth people had established a 
fishing and trading station there, of which they were dispossessed by " some 
of Lyford and Oldham's friends and their adherents." 



434 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES, [CH. XIX. 

Captain Standish's mission was not in any considerable 
degree successful. He found that Cushman was dead, the 
"wise and faithful friend" with whom he was to consult, 
and on whose greater experience and skill in commercial 
aifairs much was depending. "The state was full of trouble," 
for the disastrous reign of Charles I. had begun ; " the plague 
was very hot in London, so as no business could be done ; " 
" all trade was dead and little money stirring." i Yet Stan- 
dish found opportunity of conferring with " some of the hon- 
ored council," who promised their influence in aid of the 
plantation. Having obtained, at great cost, a very limited 
supply of " trading goods and other most needful commodi- 
ties," he returned as a passenger in a fishing vessel. Yet, 
with so little present success, he had made a good beginning 
of the negotiations which wei'e to result in a final settlement 
between the colony and the Adventurers. 

Welcome as was his return after almost a year's absence 
(April, 1626), he brought with him a new and heavy sorrow. 
Robinson, the revered pastor, so "dearly beloved and longed 
for," had died in exile, not having seen the Pilgrims' land of 
promise. " His and their adversaries had been long and con- 
tinually plotting how they might hinder his coming hither, 
but the Lord had appointed him a better place." Letters 
from Leyden, announcing his decease, expi*essed the grief of 
the waiting remnant there. Roger White, who called him 
" my brother Robinson," wrote such words as these : " Pie be- 
gan to be sick on Saturday in the morning ; yet the next day, 
being the Lord's day, he taught us twice. The week after, 
he grew weaker every day ; yet he felt no pain all the time 
of his sickness. He fell sick the twenty-second of Febru- 
ary, and departed this life the first of March. He had a con- 
tinual inward ague, but free from infection, so that all his 
friends came freely to him.^ If either prayers and tears or 

* The deaths by plague, in London and Westminster, from Dec. 22, 1624, 
to Dec. 23, 1625, were 41,313. 

^ Leyden, as well as London, suffered from a visitation of the plague that 
year. 



A.D. 1625.] DEATH OF KOBINSON. 435 

means would have saved his life, he had not gone hence. 
But having faitlifully finished his course, and performed the 
work which the Lord appointed him to perform here, he now 
rests with the Lord in eternal happiness. Wanting him and 
all church governors (not having one at present that is a 
governing officer among us), we still, by the mercy of God, 
continue and hold close together in peace and quietness, and 
so I hope we shall do, though we be very weak — wishing (if 
such were the will of God) that you and we were again to- 
gether." In another letter, written by Thomas Blossom, there 
were similar expressions : " The Lord took him away, even 
as fruit falleth before it was ripe, when neither length of 
days nor infirmity of body did seem to call for liis end." " The 
loss of his ministry was very great unto me, for I ever count- 
ed myself happy in the enjoyment of it, notwithstanding all 
the crosses and losses otherwise which I sustained." "We 
may take up that doleful complaint in the Psalm that there 
is no prophet left among us, nor any that knoweth how long. 
Alas ! you would fain have had him with you, and he would 
as fain have come to you." " I know no man among us knew 
his mind better than I did about those things : he was loth to 
leave the church, yet I know he would have accepted the 
worst conditions which in the largest extent of a good con- 
science could be taken, to have come to you. For myself 
and all such others as have formerly minded coming, it is 
much the same if the Lord afford means." " If we come at all 
to you, the means to enable us so to do must come from 
you."' 

John Robinson had lived only fifty years when he rested 
from his labors, leaving to the Church Universal a name 
worthy of everlasting remembrance. In Leyden his death 
was lamented not only by the remnant of his congregation, 
but by others who had known his gifts, his learning, and his 
life of self-denying love to Christ. Winslow affirms that 

' Bradford's " Letter Book." 



436 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

ministers of the cit}' and learned men of the university ac- 
companied his remains to their grave, " bewailing not only 
the loss which one poor church sustained," but " some of 
the chief of them sadly affirming that all the churches of 
Christ sustained a loss by the death of that worthy instru- 
ment of the Gospel." The Pilgrim remnant, in their pover- 
ty, buried their pastor under the pavement of the old cathe- 
dral. Records at Leyden show that, on the fourth of 
March, the " preacher of the English meeting by the Bel- 
fry" was "buried in the Peter's - church ;" and that, on 
the tenth, nine florins were paid for the "opening" and 
"hire" of that English preacher's grave. A grave hired 
at that price might be opened for another burial at the 
end of fifteen years, but there would be no disinterment. 
The " garnered dust " of Robinson is in the Leyden cathe- 
dral, though we may not know what stones in the pave- 
ment cover it.^ 

Though depressed by the unsuccessfulness of their latest 
attempt to obtain supplies from England, and saddened by 
the news from Leyden, the men of Plymouth were not whol- 
ly discouraged. "They gathered up their spirits, and the 
Lord, whose work they had in hand, so helped them, that 
now when they were at the lowest they began to rise again." 
Having found by their last autumn's experience that their 
surplus corn was "a commodity" of great value in their 
trade with the Lidians, "they used great diligence in plant- 
ing the same." While every man planted for himself, and 
all the products of his labor were to be his own, the trade of 
the colony " was retained foi- the general good," and was con- 
ducted by the governor and other managers as trustees for 
" the generality." Some unexpected opportunities for ob- 
taining goods were so well improved by the managers, that 
" they became well furnished for trade," and were able to pay 

' Winslow, in Young, p. 392, 393 ; Dr. II. M. Dexter, in "Proceedings 
of Massachusetts Historical Society," 1872, p. 184, 18G. 



A.D. 1627.] PROSPERITY AT PLYMOUTH. 437 

their " engagements against tlie time," and to replenish their 
store with clothing, which the people paid for with the pi-od- 
ucts of their corn-fields. " Cast down, but not destroyed," 
the Pilgrim colony had begun to prosper. 

To finish the negotiation, begun by Standisli, for a final 
settlement and division with the Adventurers, Allerton was 
sent to England. He was to obtain from them the best pro- 
posals they could be persuaded to make; but he had no pow- 
er to conclude any contract till it should be considered and 
ratified by the colony. He was also commissioned to borrow 
a sum of money on the personal security of nine principal 
men among the Planters (himself being one of them), and to 
purchase goods for their trade. Returning " at the usual sea- 
son for the coming of ships" (April, 1627), he brought with 
iiim the desired supply of goods " safe and well-conditioned, 
which was much to the comfort and content of the planta- 
tion," and also the form of a contract which the Adventurers 
had already subscribed, and which " was very well liked of 
and approved by all the plantation." For the sum of eight- 
een hundred pounds, in nine annual payments of two hun- 
dred pounds each, the Adventurers surrendered all their prop- 
erty in the colony to their partners the Planters. Eight of 
the chief men, in behalf of the colony, became personally re- 
sponsible for the successive payments ; and " thus," Plym- 
outh could exult, " all now is become our own, as we say in 
the proverb, when our debts are paid." 

Other arrangements, consequent upon this great cliange, 
were made in a liberal and enterprising spirit. There re- 
mained in the colony "mingled among them" — notwith- 
standing removals to Virginia and " to other places," such 
as Nantasket and Cape Ann — " some untoward persons," 
perhaps not equally untoward with Oldham, but such as Ly- 
ford and Oldham had attempted to organize into a faction. 
They were men who had come "on their particular," or who 
for other reasons had never been admitted to " the general- 
ity ;" and therefore they had no shares in the stock of the 



438 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH.XIX. 

Company, nor in the new responsibilities which the colony 
was assuming. What, then, was to be their place in the 
commonwealth? What was to be their share in "the dis- 
tribution of things both for the present and future ?" The 
governor and his assistants, " with other of their chief friends, 
had serious consideration how to settle things " in this re- 
spect ; and they came to a wise conclusion. " First, they 
considered that they had need of men and sti'ength both for 
defense and carrying on of business." Then they consid- 
ered that these men, though untoward, "had borne their parts 
in former miseries and wants" with the rest; and that it was 
" therefore (in some sort) but equal that they should partake 
in a better condition, if the Lord be pleased to give it." It 
was a still more urgent consideration that in no other way 
were those "untoward persons" so likely to be made peace- 
able and contented members of society, as by giving them 
an equal interest with others in the commonwealth. The 
conclusion was that it would be best " to take into this part- 
nership or purchase " all free men resident in the colony, 
whether heads of families or single, whose moral character 
and discretion were such as to authorize the expectation that 
they would be "helpful in the commonwealth." 

That conclusion was, therefore, submitted to " the generality" 
in full assembly, and was approved. In that meeting it was 
agreed, first, that the trade should continue, as before, a pub- 
lic concern in the hands of managers, all its profits pledged 
to the payments of the debts; next, that all free men of 
good character and discretion should be enrolled as purchas- 
ers of the property ceded by the late Adventurers, every such 
man having one share, and every father of a family being al- 
lowed to purchase an additional share for his wife and for 
each of his children, while servants (whose time was not their 
own) were to have only what their masters, out of their own 
shares, might allow them, or " what their deservings should 
obtain from the company afterwards;" and, thirdly, that if 
the profits of the trade should not be suflicient for the pay- 



A.D. 162;.] PROSPERITY AT PLYMOUTH. 439 

ment of the eighteen hundred pounds and other common 
debts, every man, according to the number of his shares, 
should pay his part of the deficiency. "This gave all good 
content." Well might they be content and joj'ful, for the 
enforced communism under which they had suffered was to 
cease, and all the impulses to industry and thrift which God 
has incorporated into the constitution of human nature were 
henceforth to have full play. Immediately measures were 
taken for an equitable division and allotment of what had 
been the common property of the Adventurers and the Plant- 
ers. With as little delay as possible, lands, houses, and chat- 
tels were transferred to individual owners.^ 

Another step upward was soon taken. The governor and 
other leading men, aware that all the future of the colony de- 
pended on the discharge of " those great engagements," the 
nine annual payments, besides the sums which Standish and 
Allerton had been compelled to borrow for the colony at por- 
tentous rates of interest, were at the same time anxiously in- 
quiring how to bring over some of the remnant at Leyden, 
who, in their deep depression, were so desirous of coming. 
Having well considered what was possible, " they resolved to 
run a high course and of great adventure." Their proposal 
was that if they could secure the co-operation of friends in 
England, they would "hire the trade" of the colony for six 
years, and in consideration of that exclusive privilege, to- 
gether Avith the goods then in store, and the boats and imple- 
ments belonging to the Company, and of three bushels of 
corn or six pounds of tobacco to be paid yearly by every 
partner in the recent purchase from the Adventurers, they 

' There was an allotment of twenty acres of tillable land to every share. A 
cow and two goats, with swine in proportion, was set apart for every six shai'es, 
and distributed by lot to be disposed of among the owners as they might agree. 
"They gave the governor and four or five of the special men among them the 
houses they lived in ; the rest were valued and equalized at an indifferent 
rate, and so every man kept his own, and he that had a better allowed some- 
thing to him that had a worse, as the valuation went. " 



440 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

would undertake to pay all " the debts that then lay upon 
the plantation," amounting to twenty-four hundred pounds. 
"After some agitation of the thing" in a formal assembly 
(July, 1627), the proposal was accepted. Four tried friends 
in London were found to unite with the eight Undertakers at 
Plymouth, and the colony was relieved of the pecuniary obli- 
gations that lay so heavily upon it. 

It was by Allerton's agency that this last arrangement 
was completed, for he was sent to England again " with the 
return of the ships," ^ charged not only wnth the duty of con- 
summating the contract with the Adventurers, but with other 
important trusts. The four London merchants whom he 
brought into partnership with the Undertakers of the trade, 
had been fast friends of the Plymouth church in all its 
trouble with the late Adventurers, and had been bitterly re- 
proached for not siding with the Puritan majority against 
the Pilgrims and the going over of the Leyden remnant.'-^ 
To them, thei-efore, he freely communicated the earnest de- 
sire of Bradford and the others, to " help over some of their 
friends from Leyden ;" and he found them ready to co-oper- 
ate in that part of the design. Returning in the spring 
(1628), he was able to report that the first payment of two 
hundred pounds to the late Adventurers had been punctually 
made; that the other debts assumed by the Undertakers for 
the colony had been reduced in the same amount, and that 
their London partners and some other friends were intending 
"to send over to Leyden for a competent number of them to 
be here the next year without fail, if the Lord pleased to 
bless their journey." 

In one thing the agent had gone beyond his commission. 

' Communication with England had begun to be in some sort regular. 
The fishing vessels ordinarily left England in the vvintei', arrived upon the 
eastern coast of New England in the spring, and returned in the latter part 
of summer or early in the autumn. 

^ Sherley to Bradford, in Bradford's "Letter-Book." — Mass. Historical 
Collections, iii., 49. 



A.D. 1628-9.] THE LEYDEN REMNANT. 441 

He was not the agent of the cluivch, nor, properly, of the 
colony, but only of the commercial Undertakers. Nor had 
he been in any way authorized or requested by the church 
to select and introduce a minister; "for they had been so 
bitten by Mr. Lyford that they desired to know the person 
well whom they should invite among them." But, advised 
perhaps by some friend or friends in London, he assumed the 
responsibility of bi'inging with him a young man named 
Rogers, who, he thought, might be acceptable and useful in 
the ministry of the Word. The young man Avas received by 
the church as kindly as Lyford was at his coming; for they 
could not refuse to try what he could do as a preacher. 
"But they perceived, upon some trial, that he was crazed in 
his brain ; so they were fain to send him back again the next 
year, and lose all the charge that was expended in his hither- 
bringing." Nothing more is known of the unfortunate young 
man, save that "after his return he grew quite distracted." 
It is not strange that "Mr. Allerton was much blamed" for 
imposing such a burden upon his brethren, "they having 
charge enough otherwise." 

Notwithstanding this mistake, and some other things in 
which the proceednigs of the agent were not satisfactory, his 
associates did not withdraw their confidence fi-om him. "Be- 
cause love thinks no evil, nor is suspicious, they took his fair 
words for excuse, and resolved to send him again this year, 
. . . considering how well he had done the former business, 
and what good acceptation he had with their friends there; 
and also seeing sundry of their friends from Leyden were 
sent for who might be much furthered by his means." 

The London partners were hearty in their co-operation ; 
and before the end of another summer thirty-five of the Ley- 
den remnant arrived at Plymouth. A letter fi-om Sherley to 
Bradford said of them, in a tone of exultation: "Here are 
now many of your and our friends from Leyden coming over 
[May 25 = June 4, 1629]. Though, for the most part, they be 
but a weak company, yet herein is obtained a good part of 



442 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XIX. 

that end which was first aimed at, and which hath been so 
Strongly opposed by some of our former Adventurers. But 
God hath his working, . . . which man can not frustrate." An- 
other but less numerous company of the sojourners at Ley- 
den came over early in the next year. At their departure 
from England, Sherley, knowing that the hope of effecting 
the transportation of those exiles was one reason why Brad- 
ford and the others had undertaken to pay the debts of the 
colony, expressed his hearty approval. " In the agreement 
you have made with the generality," said he, " you have done 
very well both for them and you, and also for your friends 
at Leyden. . . . We are willing to join with you, and, God di- 
recting and enabling us, will be assisting and helpful to you, 
the best we possibly can. Had you not taken this course, I 
see not how you could have accomplished the end which you 
first aimed at, and which some others endeavored these years 
past." As a partner with the Undertakers, he was aware 
that what they were then doing would not be commercially 
profitable; "for," said he, "most of those who came in May 
last unto you, as also of these now sent, though (I hope) hon- 
est and good people, are not like to be helpful to raise profit, 
but . . . must somewhile be chargeable to you and us." But 
"the burden," he intimated, would be not on the colony, but 
on the Undertakers, and " you," he added, " will so lovingly 
join together in affection and counsel that God, no doubt, 
will bless and prosper your honest endeavors." 

It was, indeed, a " burden" on the Undertakers. The cost 
of ti-ansporting those two companies from Holland to En- 
gland, and thence across the Atlantic, with other expenses 
incident, was more than five hundred and fifty pounds. Ar- 
riving at Plymouth after the planting-time, in two successive 
years, the first company in August and the second in May, 
their "corn and other provisions" must be supplied — in the 
first instance more than a year, in the other almost a year 
and a half — from harvests which they had not planted: a 
charsce which was little less than the cost of their removal. 



A.D. 1629-30.] THE LEYDEN EEMNANT. 443 

" All they could do in the mean time was to get them some 
housing, and to prepare them grounds to plant on against 
the season." What added to the burden, those who selected 
the second company "sent all the weakest and poorest," 
thinking that, " if these were got over, the rest might come 
when they would." " Yet," says Bradford, " they were such 
as feared God, and were to us both welcome and useful, for 
the most part."^ So the migration of the exiles, by com- 
panies, from Leyden to Plymouth was ended. 

Some of those at Plymouth who, though not of the Pil- 
grim Company, had become partners in " the generality," be- 
gan to murmur at the great cost of bringing over that Ley- 
den remnant ; for, though they were told that " the burden 
lay on other men's shoulders," were they not bound to pay 
the stipulated "three bushels of corn or six pounds of tobac- 
co " to the Undertakers ? To remove their discontent, it was 
generously promised that, unless the six years' profits of the 
trade should prove insufficient for the payment of the debts, 
the tax should never be demanded, and that promise " gave 
them good content." It is no more than a modest apprecia- 
tion of the truth, when Bradford, having told by what efforts 
and sacrifices the removal of those who had been so long 
detained in Holland was at last accomplished, asks that it 
may be noted as " a rare example of brotherly love and of 
Christian care" on the part of the Pilgrim Church "in per- 
forming their promises and covenants to their brethren." 
His devout spirit saw — and can not we see? — "that there 
was more than of man in these achievements." It was God's 
grace, he thought, that had "stirred up the hearts of such 
able friends to join with them in such a cause and to cleave 
so faithfully to them in so great adventures" — friends whose 
faces the most of them had never seen. Let God be 
praised ! 



' Bradford's " Letter -Book." — Mass. Historical Collections, iii., 65,66, 
68-70. 



444 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XIX. 

Plymouth was now passing through the tenth year of its 
stru2:2:le for existence ; and in that conflict it had gained the 
victory. Whether it should remain on the soil which the 
Pilgrims, by persistent labor, had conquered from the wil- 
derness and w^ere converting into fruitful fields, was no 
longer a doubtful question. The body politic constituted 
by a few homeless Englishmen in the cabin of the Mayflower^ 
and maintaining itself under the simplest form of democracy, 
was an established fact. The Governor of Plymouth, de- 
riving his authority from God through a yearly election by 
the people, was a functionary recognized by his Majesty's 
Council for New England. The trade of the colony witli 
the Indians, with English vessels resorting to the New En- 
gland fisheries, and with merchants in London, was prosper- 
ing, and was lifting it out of its pecuniary troubles. The 
Hollanders who weie trying to make a New Amsterdam at 
the mouth of the Hudson had sought the friendship of the 
Englishmen at New Plymouth, who had once lived in tlieir 
country, and with whom they could hold communication in 
their own language ; and the Leyden exiles, now fathers of 
a growing commonwealth, had enjoyed the opportunity of 
manifesting their grateful remembrance of the hospitality 
that sheltered them in Holland. Plymouth, in its tenth 
year and with its growing prosperity, was still a Separatist 
colony, with only a voluntary church that acknowledged no 
jurisdiction of Cwsar or of Parliament over the things that 
are God's, and no dominion of either a priestly or a preach- 
ing clergj^ over the Lord's free people. A bishop's commis- 
sary had been sent to New England, but did not venture to 
show his commission at Plymouth. Puritanism had struggled 
pertinaciously to capture the obnoxious Brownist colony, and 
had given up the conflict. Though Robinson had died in 
liis exile — broken-hearted but for his trust in God — some 
of his children, and all but a remnant of liis flock, had come 
at last into the Ncav England which he so longed for; and 
the church which, with "hope deferred," waited in vain for 



A.D. 1630.] 



PROSPERITY AT PLYMOUTH. 



445 



his coming, had found a laastor to serve it in the ministry ol" 
word and doctrine, and to be associated with Brewster in its 
government. 

To explain how the church found a minister whom it could 
venture to place in the pastoral office, we must go back to a 
date at which we may take up the story of what Puritanism 
attempted, with higher aims and on a grander scale, after its 
ignominious failure to circumvent the Separatism of Plym- 
outh. 




^kJ 




^ 








^nn^^i^ofd 



tZ£>, ^"WyCuA.^ 



PILGRIM AUTOGRAPHS. 

[The foregoing signatui-es (in fac simile) are not without value as au ilhistration 
of our story. "William Bradford," "Edw. Wiiislow," "Willni. Brewster," "Myles 
Standish," and "Isaac Allerton"are names with which the reader has become famil- 
iar. "John Bradford" was the son of William, left behind when the Mayflower sailed 
from England, but afterward brought over. "Tho. Prence" (or Prince), afterward a 
son-in-law of Brewster, and Governor of the colony, came in the Fortune, 1C'21. 
"Nathaniel Morton," afterward Secretary of the colony, and author of "New England's 
Memorial," came, at twelve years of age, with his father, George Morton, in the^4w/ie, 
16"23. "Thomas Cushman" came, a boy of fourteen years, with liis father in the 
Fortime; he was left under the care of Governor Bradford, and at the death of 
Brewster, twenty-eight years later, he became the Ruling Elder. "John Winslow," 
a brother of Edward, came in the Fortune. "Constant Soutliworth" and "Tho. 
Southworth" were the step-sons of Governor Bradford.] 

G G 



446 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE BEGINNING OF A PURITAN COLONY IN NEW ENGLAND, 
AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 

It is no part of the work now in hand to tell the story of 
the great Puritan Exodus, or to describe minutely its be- 
ginning. The present design will be completed when we 
shall have seen what Puritanism becomes as soon as it finds 
itself free in the American wilderness; and how, notwith- 
standing its zeal in England for ecclesiastical Nationalism, 
and the bitter feeling which it has cherished against the 
schism of Separatism, it finds, under its new conditions— in a 
new world, where the Church of Christ is to be formed, in- 
stead of being, as in the old world, reformed — no other way 
than that of calling out from among the ungodly and pro- 
fane those " who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus," and 
binding them together " as the Lord's free people " in a vol- 
untary covenant of allegiance to their Saviour and of broth- 
erly helpfulness to e'ach other. 

In Dorchester, the shire town of Dorsetshire, about one 
hundred and fifty miles southeast from London, the Rev. 
John White had long been rector of Trinity Church. He 
was an earnest Puritan, venerated for his goodness and zeal- 
ous for church reformation, though he was one of the many 
who, either because their scruples did not bring them under 
the penalties of the Act of Uniformity, or because they were 
winked at by the ecclesiastical authorities, retained their 
livings under the imperfectly reformed establishment, and 
were called "Conforming Puritans." Dorchester, though 
not a seaport, was a place of some trade ; and young men 
from its families were going, year by year, on fishing voy- 
ages to the coast of New Eno-land. The cjood rector of 



A.D. 1624.] A PUEITAN COLONY PROJECTED. 447 

Trinity Church, having served in that place more than twenty 
years, liad learned to care for his parishioners abroad as well 
as at home ; and so forward was he in plans and efforts for 
the general interest of religion, that he was sometimes called 
"the patriarch of Dorchester." In his solicitude for his own 
parishioners long absent on voyages to the New England 
coast, and especially for their spiritual welfare, he thought 
how many others endured the same hardships on the sea, 
and were subjected to the same temptations of the wilder- 
ness. He conceived the plan of a settlement at some con- 
venient point, where sailors and fishermen, going ashore, 
might find more comfortable shelter and better supplies than 
the mere wilderness could give them, and might have the 
benefit of religious ministrations. At his persuasion, a few 
merchants and gentlemen formed an association (1624) of 
" Dorchester Adventurers " for that purpose, and contributed 
a capital of three thousand pounds.^ 

The town of Gloucester, famous as a fishing town, received 
its name long afterward ; but its place, on the northern 
cape of the great Massachusetts Bay, became important as 
early as the first resOrt of fishing vessels to the coast. A 
patent for Cape Ann and a not well-defined extent of adjoin- 
ing territory, was taken out, in the names of Cushman and 
Winslow ?nd their associates, for Plymouth colony. It was 
under that patent, and therefore (we must infer) by some 
arrangement with the London Adventurers for Plymouth 
colony," that the Dorchester Adventui-ers began (1624) their 

* The "Planter's Plea," in Young's "Chronicles of Massachusetts," p. G; 
Hubbard's "History of New England," p. lOG. 

- See ante, p. 433. Captain John Smith, in his " General History," 1624, 
as quoted by Dr. Palfrey, i., 285, says : "By Cape Ann there is a plantation 
a-beginning by the Dorchester men, which they hold of those of New Plym- 
outh, who also by them have set up a fishing work." The date of the 
patent is Jan. 1=10, 1624. It has been suggested that there was already 
some beginning of a settlement before the date of the patent. Very proba- 
bly the needs of tlie fishing vessels had' induced the building of a house or 
two. 



448 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

plantation at Cape Ann. White and his friends could hard- 
ly fail to be in communication and in sympathy with the 
anti-Separatist or Puritan party among the Adventurers at 
London. Thus it naturally came about that when Oldham 
and Lyford had been expelled from Plymouth, and when the 
London partnership was breaking to pieces, the Dorchester 
Adventurers, whose plantation had been far from prosperous, 
were informed concerning " some religious and well-affected 
persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth out 
of dislike of their principles of rigid separation." One of 
these, it is said, was Roger Conant, who seems to have been 
not unfitly described as "a religious, sober, and prudent gen- 
tleman."' Lyford and Oldliam were also considered to be 
religious persons " well affected " toward the Puritan idea of 
a National Church and the Puritan method of church reforma- 
tion. On the invitation of the Dorchester Adventurers, Co- 
nant removed from Nantasket to Cape Ann (1625), and un- 
dertook, in their behalf, the government of the plantation 
there. Lyford, by the same invitation, went to exercise 
there the ministry to which he had been ordained in the Na- 
tional Church, and which the incorrigible Separatists of Plym- 
outh had refused to recognize. Oldham was also invited, 
and to him the superintendence of trade between the new 
colony and the Indians was offered ; but he preferred to re- 
main at Nantasket, trading with the Lidians on his own ac- 
count. 

The whole story implies that there was an intimate con- 
nection between the Dorchester men and those Puritan Ad- 
venturers in London, whose conscientious antipathies had con- 
vinced them that " they should sin against God by building 
up such a people" as those Pilgrims were who "renounced 

' No mention is made of him in Bradford's History, nor is any trace of 
him discoverable at Plymouth. Probably he was there only as a visitor. It 
may be that he came over in the Charity with Lyford and Oldham, and, in- 
stead of remaining in Plymouth with them, went eastward in the same 
vessel. 



A.D. 1625.] A PURITAN COLONY PROJECTED. 449 

all universal, national, and diocesan churches." When 
Cushman wrote, " We have taken a patent for Cape Ann," 
the men of Plymouth assumed that the patent was for them, 
or at least for the great partnership in which they were 
members ; and with great alacrity they went into the enter- 
prise of making an establishment at Cape Ann. Immediate- 
ly, though the season was inconvenient, they sent some of 
their me°n to build stages for the fishery there, and the next 
year they transferred their salt manufacture from Plymouth 
to the new plantation, that it might be near the fishery. But 
as soon as the Puritan majority of Adventurers had resolved 
to do nothing more for Plymouth, and to break up the part- 
nership between themselves and the Planters, they seem to 
have determined on seizing Cape Ann as their own. " Some 
of Lyford and Oldham's friends, and their adherents," says 
Bradford—" some of the west country merchants," says Hub- 
bard, showing incidentally that those "adherents" of Old- 
ham's friends were the Dorchester Adventurers—" set out a 
ship on fishing on their own account; and getting the start 
of the ships that came to the plantation, they took away their 
[the Plymouth people's] stage and other necessary provisions 
that they had made for fishing at Cape Ann the year before 
at their great charge, and would not restore the same ex- 
cept they' would fight for it." Captain Standish was there 
to assert the right of the Plymouth Planters, and was ready 
to fight for it. But wiser counsels prevailed against the 
martial spirit of the captain, and the dispute about that fish- 
ing-stage was compromised. Nevertheless the Plymouth 
memorial, addressed immediately afterward to his Majesty's 
Council for New England, made complaint against those Ad- 
venturers who had broken their compact with the Planters : 
"They have not only cast us off, but entered into a particu- 
lar course of trading, and have by violence and force taken 
at their pleasure our possession at Cape Ann." The Pil- 
grims at Plymouth knew the Dorchester or Western Advent- 
urers only as allies or "adherents" of those London Advent- 



450 GENESIS OF THE KEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

urers whose Puritan scrupulousness would not permit tliem 
to co-operate in building up a schismatic colony. Puritan- 
ism, not schism, was to characterize the new plantation, and 
the expectation was that such an enterprise would be in 
favor with God and with godly men.^ 

Yet the fishing settlement nnder Puritan patronage had 
its disasters. At the end of its second year, the Dorchester 
Adventurers were discouraged. Their expectations of present 
advantage were not likely to be realized. A large part of 
their three thousand pounds had been lost in unsuccessful 
voyages. The men whom they employed in their plantation, 
though unsuspected of any Brovvnist opinions, were not the 
men for such a work. " Being ill-chosen and ill-commanded, 
they fell into many disorders, and did the company little 
service." The well-intending Adventurers had begun a great 
work, without knowing — what Plymouth might have taught 
them — that the successful founders of a colony, instead of 
hiring whom they can find to go and "bear the brunt," must 
go in person, full of the inspiring conception, and ready to 
suffer and to die for it. Unwilling to expend more money 
upon the unremunerative enterprise, they abandoned it; and 
we may suppose that they did so not without something of 
self-reproach that they had permitted their veneration foi 
the patriarch of Dorchester to involve them in so great n 
loss. Ought they not to have remembered that the good 
man, being a Puritan minister, could not be expected to have 
much wisdom in secular aff^xirs ? They took order for the 
sale of their joint-stock property and the breaking up of their 
plantation. Yet they " were so civil to those that were em- 
ployed under them as to pay them all their wages, and prof- 
fered to transport them back whence they came." The ma- 
jority of " the land-men " at Cape Ann accepted the offer 
and went home. " But a few of the most honest and indus- 



* Compare Bradford's account of the conflict at Cnpe Ann (p. 19G, 197) 
with Hubbard's (p. 110,111). 



A.D. 162(3. J A PURITAN COLONY BEGUN. 451 

trious resolved to stay behind, and to take charge of the 
cattle sent over the year before; which they performed ac- 
cordingly." 

One of those few was Roger Conant, whom the Advent- 
nrers had appointed to govern their plantation, and who 
had seen at Plymouth what could be done by perseverance. 
Convinced that every attempt to make a fishing station the 
nucleus of a colony would end in failure, he had already se- 
lected a more hopeful place for a new beginning. Through 
a brother of his in England, he was in communication with 
the venerated Puritan minister at Dorchester; and to him 
as well as to other friends he intimated that a settlement 
might be more advantageously begun at a place "called 
Naumkeag, a little to the westward " from Cape Ann, and 
" might prove a receptacle for such as upon the account of 
religion would be willing to begin a foreign plantation in 
this part of the world." Already, with Charles on the throne, 
and Laud his chief counselor in ecclesiastical affairs, men's 
hearts were " failing them for fear and for looking after those 
things that were coming" upon England; and Puritans as 
well as Separatists were beginning to think of foreign plan- 
tations "on the account of religion." What Conant pro- 
posed was a distinctively Puritan colony, where Puritan 
principles, abhorrent alike of popery and prelacy on the one 
hand, and of schism on the other, should have free course and 
be glorified. White, grieved at the failure of his first at- 
tempt, but not disheartened, wrote to Conant, assuring him 
that if he and three others, known to be honest and prudent 
men, who had been employed by the Adventurers,' would 
remain at Naumkeag, they should not be forsaken. He un- 
dertook to provide a patent for them at their new settle- 
ment ; and " would send them whatever they should write 



• The three were John Woodbury, John Balch, and Peter Palfrey. The 
learned and honored historian of New England is descended from that Pal- 
frey who was one of the four Puritan founders of Massachusetts. 



452 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH.XX. 

for, either men or provision, or goods wherewith to trade 
with the Indians." They accepted the offer; and yet, before 
any return had come from England, Lyford, having received 
"a loving invitation" to Virginia, and being "thither bound," 
persuaded almost the entire company to "recoil from their 
engagement for fear of the Indians and other inconveniences." 
But Conant, " as one inspired by some superior instinct," 
was firm. He "peremptorily declared his mind to wait the 
providence of God in that place where they now were — yea, 
though all the rest should forsake him," The "superior in- 
stinct " prevailed. Lyford went where his character was 
less likely to become notorious; and we know not how many 
went with him. But the three designated associates of Co- 
nant, "observing his confident resolution, at last concurred 
with him." They knew the danger, but they had the inspira- 
tion of a purpose above and beyond themselves, and " stayed 
to the hazard of tlieir lives." ^ 

John White, the patriarch, had not overestimated his own 
influence with the "knights and gentlemen about Dorches- 
ter," and he kept his word with Conant. He made such ar- 
rangements that "the Council established at Plymouth for 
the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New En- 
gland," by a patent under their common seal (March 19 = 29, 
1628), " bargained and sold " to a company, not of merchants, 
but of two knights and four gentlemen in the west of En- 
gland, "that part of New England which lies between Mer- 
rimack and Charles rivers in the bottom of the Massachusetts 
Bay. "2 Then he brought the six patentees into negotiation, 
and ultimately into partnership, "with several other religious 

'■ Such is Conant's own statement — the last phrase being his language — in 
a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts, dated May, 1(571. 

* More exactly, the territory conveyed by the patent included the land with- 
in the space of three miles south from any part of Charles River and three 
miles north from any part of the Merrimack, and also three miles south of the 
southernmost part of what was then called Massachusetts Bay. All former 
patents for lands within those limits seem to have been considered as void. 



A.D. 1628.] A PURITAN COLONY BEGUN. 453 

persons of like quality in and about London," among whom 
some merchants were included as well as " knights and gen- 
tlemen." ^ Already there had been among Puritans in Lin- 
colnshire discourse about New England and the planting of 
the Gospel there ; and from Lincolnshire there had been " let- 
ters and messages to some in London and the west country." 
There were no newspapers through which the thoughts that 
were moving simultaneously in so many minds could find 
public expression ; nor was it the custom of those times to 
hold conventions for the discussion of such a scheme. But 
the scheme of a Puritan colony was agitated in the methods 
which were then possible; and the Company of Massachusetts 
Bay was organized to prosecute the work of planting and 
governing the territory for which it had a patent from his 
Majesty's Council for New England. John White was per- 
forming his promise to Roger Conant. 

The new Company was in earnest. It was not a commer- 
cial company looking for dividends on the capital invested ; 
it had higher aspirations. It was rather a society for Puri- 
tan colonization, and the end it aimed at was not gain to its 
members, but achievement for the kingdom of God. Having 
obtained, by purchase from the Plymouth Council, the owner- 
ship of an adequate territory, it was undertaking to plant in 
that territory a Christian state after the Puritan theory. 
Some men were " offering the help of their purses if fit men 
might be procured to go over," and the question was, Avheth- 
er any such men — "fit" to be the founders of Puritan civil- 

' The original patentees "about Dorchester" Avere "Sir Henry Boswell, 
Sir John Young, knights, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, John Endi- 
cott, and Simon Whetcomb, gentle7nen." Some of the "religious persons" 
in and about London were such as Sir Richard Saltonstall, John Winthrop, 
Isaac Johnson, Matthew Cradock, Increase Nowell, and (not to extend 
the catalogue) Theophilus Eaton, afterward governor of a New England col- 
ony, and Thomas Goffe, who had been one of the Adventurers for the 
Plymouth Pilgrims, and had found their Brownism too much for his Puritan 
conscience. 



454 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

ization in the New England wilderness — conld be procured. 
Captain John Endicott, one of the original patentees, " a man 
well known to divers persons of good note," was judged 
"fit;" and being invited to lead and govern the proposed 
plantation, he " manifested much willingness to accept tlu- 
ofier." The pioneer expedition was soon fitted out ; and the 
Abigail, freighted with forty-six and a half tons of goods, 
and having for passengers Captain John Endicott and his 
wife, with perhaps forty more, sailed from Weymouth (the 
port of Dorchester) for Naumkeag (June 20 = 30, 1628). 

Arriving at liis destination, Endicott, in the name of the 
new Company which had undertaken to " erect a new colony 
on the old foundation," assumed the government. He found, 
at first, some discontent on the part of the old planters, Avho 
feared some encroachment on their rights; but, "by the pru- 
dent moderation of Mr. Conant," the disagreement between 
them and the new-comers Avas " quietly composed." In mem- 
ory of that pacification, the plantation at Naumkeag received 
not long afterward a Hebrew name from the Old Testament — 
Salem, signifying Peace. The leading men, both of the old 
Planters and of those who came Avith the new governor, 
were of one mind — religiously engaged in the great design 
for which the Massachusetts Company was formed. 

All the preparation which Conant and his few compan- 
ions had been able to make for the reinforcement was inad- 
equate. The population to be provided for was increased by 
a body of "servants" who came over, either in the Abigail 
or in some other vessel, to work for the Company. Important 
as their labor was to the colony, it could not feed them with 
food convenient for them after the privations of their voyage, 
nor shelter them as their condition required. "Arriving 
there in an uncultivated desert, many of them, for want of 
wholesome diet and convenient lodgings, were seized with 
the scurvy and other distempers, which shortened many of 
their days, and prevented many of the rest from performing 
any great matter of labor that year for advancing the work 



A.D. 1629.] A PURITAN COLONY BEGUN. 455 

of the plantation." ^ While the colony was in that distress, 
its governor, understanding that at Plymouth there was a 
physician " that had some skill that way, and had cured di- 
vers of the scurvy and others of other diseases," wrote to the 
older colony for help. Deacon Samuel Fuller had long been 
the beloved physician of the Pilgrim church. Certainly he 
was experienced in the practice of his art ; perhaps he had 
acquired at Leyden the medical science of that age. He 
was sent to the relief of the sufterers at Naumkeag; and his 
service thei'e was the beginning of affectionate intercourse 
between the two colonies, the liberalized Separatists of the 
one and the godly Puritans of the other having learned that 
the differences which so alienated each party from the other 
in their native country were comparatively unimportant in 
New England. The frank and generous letter which Gov- 
ernor Endicott wrote to Governor Bradford after Fuller's 
visit is a significant fact in our story ; for a letter is some- 
times as much of a fact in history as a coronation or a bat- 
tle. A transcript of the letter (May 11=21, 1629) will be 
more to.our purpose than any description of it could be: 

":7b the Worshipful ayid my right worthy Friend, William 
Beadford, Esq., Governor of N'eio Plymouth, these: 
"Right Worthy Sir, — It is a thing not usual that serv- 
ants to one Master and of the same household should be stran- 
gers ; I assure you I desire it not — nay, to speak more plainly, 
I can not be so to you. God's people are marked with one 
and the same mark, and sealed with one and the same seal, 
and have, for the main, one and the same heart guided by 
one and the same Spirit of truth ; and where this is there 
can be no discord — nay, here must needs be sweet harmony. 
The same request with you I make unto the Lord, that we 
may, as Christian brethren, be united by a heavenly and un- 
feigned love, bending all our hearts and forces in furthering 



' Hubbard, p. 110. 



456 GEiSTESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

a work beyotKl our strength, with reverence and fear fasten- 
ing our eyes always on Him tliat only is able to direct and 
prosper all our ways. 

"I acknowledge myself much bound to you for your kind 
love and care in sending Mv. Fuller among us; and I re- 
joice much that I am by him satisfied touching your judg- 
ments of the outward form of God's worship. It is, as far 
as I can yet gather, no other than is warranted by the evi- 
dence of truth, and the same which I have professed and 
maintained ever since the Lord in mercy revealed himself to 
me; being very far diiferent from the common report that 
hath been spread of you touching that particular. But God's 
children must not look for less here below, and it is the great 
mercy of God that he strengthens them to go through with it. 

" I shall not need at this time to be tedious unto you ; for, 
God willing, I purpose to see your face shortly. In the mean 
time, I humbly take my leave of you, committing you to the 
Lord's blessed protection, and rest. 

"Your assured loving friend and servant, 

" John Endicott." 

It appears, then, that no sooner had Endicott and the Puri- 
tans who came with him begun to breathe the air of the free 
wilderness, than they began to lose the antipathy of their 
party against Separatism, and to see that the theory of the 
Pilgrims concerning "the outward form of God's worship"^ 
was " warranted by the evidence of truth." But, meanwhile, 
the Massachusetts Company in England was watchfully 

^ In the language of those times, and especially of those parties, "the out- 
ward form of God's worship " included much more than the particular dis- 
putes about a certain book of printed prayers imjjosed on all worshipers by 
the state. It was the more comprehensive question concerning "the out- 
ward form" — the constitution and order — of the worshiping assembly or 
society, or, in other words, the nature and organization of the visible church. 
Such, evidently, was the meaning of the phrase in Endicott's letter, and in the 
talk between him and Deacon Fuller. 



A.D. 1629.] A PURITAN COLONY BEGUN. 457 

guarding itself against complicity with Separatism. Its 
members were loyal to the Church of England, praying and 
(as they had opportunity) working for its welfare; though 
they were constrained to bear witness, in one way or anoth- 
er, against the superstitious ceremonies, the popish vestments, 
the stinted and ill-reformed liturgy, the prelatical govern- 
ment, and the canon law. To them no less than to the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury a renunciation of membership in the 
National Church was schism, and schism was sin. It was, 
therefore, without any disingenuousness or self-deception that 
they protested against the " suspicious and scandalous re- 
ports raised" in disparagement of their undertaking, "as if, 
under the color of planting a colony, they intended to raise 
and erect a seminary of faction and separation." It was in 
all honesty that they imputed such reports to "the jealous}- 
of some distempered mind " — or to " a malicious plot of men 
ill-affected to religion, endeavoring, by casting the under- 
takers into the jealousy of state, to shut them out of those 
advantages which otherwise they might expect from the con- 
tinuance of authority." ^ 

Doubtless, then, it was with a hearty dislike of Separatism, 
and with an unfeigned adherence to the principle of ecclesi- 
astical Nationalism, that the associated Puritans who were 
attempting to found a colony in New England asked and 
obtained from Charles I., in the fourth year of his reign 
(March 4 = 14, 1620), a confirmation of their patent, and a 
royal charter of incorporation, with ample powers for the col- 
onization and government of their territory. What had been 
only a partnership or voluntary society became a body poli- 
tic, entitled "The Governor and Company of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England." It proceeded under its charter with- 
out any change in its organization or its plans. Its records 
show that, before the date of the charter, large preparations 
for another expedition were in progress ; and in a catalogue 

' The "Planter's Plea," in Young's "Chron. of Massachusetts," p. 15. 



458 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

of necessaries which the Company was " to provide to send 
for New England," the first and most conspicuous item is 

" MINISTERS." 

A letter, written twelve days before the date of the char- 
ter, by Matthew Cradock, Governor of the Company, in- 
formed Endicott that the Company had been greatly enlarged 
since he left England, and that three vessels, and perhaps an- 
other, were to sail in a few days with supplies and reinforce- 
ments for the colony. To us who read it to-day, some parts 
of that letter seem almost like a letter from the executive of 
a missionary society to a distant missionary. After some 
business details, the Governor of the Company said to the 
Governor of the Colony : "We are very confident of your best 
endeavors for the general good, and we doubt not that God 
will in mercy give a blessing upon our labors. We trust 
you will not be unmindful of the main end of our plantation, 
... to bring the Indians to the knowledge of the Gospel ; 
which that it may be the speedier and better effected, the 
earnest desire of our whole Company is that you have a dili- 
gent and watchful eye over our own people, that they live 
unblamable and without reproof, and demean themselves 
justly and courteously toward the Indians, thereby to draw 
them to affect our persons and thereby our religion ; as also " 
that you " endeavor to get some of their children to train up 
to reading, and consequently to religion, while they are 
young ; and herein, to young or old, to omit no good oppor- 
tunity that may tend to bring them out of that woeful state 
they are now in — in which case our predecessors in this land 
sometime were. . . . But God, who out of the boundless ocean 
of his mercy hath showed pity and compassion to our land, 
is all-suffieient, and can bring this to pass which we now de- 
sire in that country likewise. Only let us not be wanting on 
our parts, now we are called to this work of the Lord's ; 
neither, having put our hands to the plow, let us look back, 
but let us go on cheerfully, and depend upon God for a bless- 
ing upon our labors," 



A.D. 1629.] A PUEITAN COLONY BEGUN. 459 

In that conncctiou, the letter announces the Company's 
resolution "to send over two ministers at the least" in the 
expedition which was so nearly ready ; and it adds, for the 
satisfaction of Endicott, "Those we send you shall be by the 
approbation of Mr. White, of Dorchester, and Mr. Daven- 
port." ^ It was in accordance with the Puritan ideas which 
were the bond of union to the Company, that the supply of 
ministers to its colony should be provided and controlled by 
the corporation. 

A resolution had been taken by the Company to send 
"two ministers at the least;" but whom should tliey send? 
Whom could they find that would be at once fit for so impor- 
tant a mission, and willing to go ? They must take care not to 
send another Lyford. J'ive weeks after Governor Cradock's 
letter to Endicott, "intimation was given" at a meeting of 
the Company, " by letters from Mr. Isaac Johnson," the largest 
contributor to the common stock, and one of the most effi- 
cient promoters of the design, " that one Mr. Higginson, of 
Leicester, an able minister," was willing to go on that mis- 
sion.2 The minister thus nominated was not unknown to 
members of the Company ; for he was a brother-in-law of 
Theophilus Eaton, and Increase Nowell (present at the meet- 
ing) was his c6usin. He, then, " being approved," says the 
record, " for a reverend, grave minister, fit for our present oc- 

1 The entire letter is in Young's " Chron. of Massachusetts," p. 131-137. 

= Isaac Johnson's seat was at Clipsham, in the county of Rutland, and it 
may he assumed that, living so near to Leicester, he knew Higginson person- 
ally as well as by reputation. Johnson's standing in England appears from 
the fact that his wife, the Lady Arbella, was a daughter of the Earl of Lin- 
coln. His commendation, even if Higginson had been imknown to the rest 
of the Company, was enough. About eighteen months later, he and his wife 
found their graves in Massachusetts, the I>ady Arbella at Salem, the honored 
and lamented Isaac Johnson, ' ' a holy man and wise, " at Boston. His grave, 
on the lot which he had chosen for his dwelling-place, gave, as tradition tells 
us, a sort of consecration to what became the first burial-ground in that 
town, the one now known as "the King's Chapel Burial-ground. — "Chron. 
of Massachusetts," p. 317, 318. 

n II 



460 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

casions," Mr. John Humphrey, one of the most eminent mem- 
bers of the Company, active from the first conception of the 
enterprise at Dorchester, was requested " to ride presently to 
Leicester, and, if Mr. Higginson may conveniently be had to 
go this pi*esent voyage," to deal with him. The first of the 
conditions proposed by the Company as a basis for negotia- 
tion with Higginson was that his removal should be " with- 
out scandal to that people;" for though he had once been 
the incumbent of one of the parish churches in Leicester, his 
Puritanism had advanced to the stage of nonconformity, 
and he was at that time a lecturer, supported by voluntary 
contributions from former parishioners and other friends. 
Those friends, therefore, were to be consulted; and his re- 
moval must be with their approbation. Mi". Hildersham was 
also to be consulted — the venerable arch -Puritan of Ashby- 
de-la-Zouch, who had been more than once silenced for non- 
conformity, and then restoi'ed — who had for the same cause 
been imprisoned by the High Commission, fined two thousand 
pounds, degraded from the ministry, excommunicated, and 
then again restored because the Earl of Huntington was his 
kinsman. His approbation must be had before making the 
contract. So thoroughly did the Company of Massachusetts 
Bay, even from its beginning, identify itself with the Puritan 
party in the Church of England, and with the most advanced 
and obnoxious leaders of that party. 

How Mr. Humphrey's ride to Leicester prospered appears 
from the result. The message which he bore seems to have 
been enforced by some communication from the patriarchal 
White ; and Higginson, who had reason, perhaps, to expect a 
visit from oflScers of the High Commission rather than so 
friendly an invitation, " looked at it as a call from God, and 
(as Peter looked at the message from Cornelius) a motion 
which he could not withstand." ^ Other ministers were found 
willing to go over with him; and when the expedition, after 

^ Acts xi., 17; Hubbard, p. 112. 



A.D. 1629.] A PURITAN COLONY. 461 

many delays, set forth, the official letter from the Company to 
Governor Endicott introduced them to him and to the colony. 
After announcing the confirmation of title to the territory, 
and the extension of power to govern all its inhabitants 
which had been obtained fi'om his Majesty " under the broad 
seal of England," and before touching upon any other matter, 
the Company proceeded to instruct the governor of its colony 
concerning those missionaries : " For that the propagating 
of the Gospel is the thing we do profess above all to be our 
aim in settling this plantation, we have been careful to make 
plentiful provision of godly ministers; by whose faithful 
preaching, godly conversation, and exemplary life we trust 
not only those of our own nation will be built up in the 
knowledge of God, but also the Indians may, in God's ap- 
pointed time, be reduced to the obedience of the Gospel of 
Christ. One of them is well known to yourself, namely, Mr. 
Skelton, whom we have the rather desired to bear a part in 
this work, for that we are informed yourself have formerly 
received much good by his ministry. . . , Another is Mr. Hig- 
ginson, a grave man, and of worthy commendations. . . . The 
third is Mr. Bright, sometime trained up under Mr. Daven- 
port. . . .We pray you, accommodate them all with neces- 
saries as well as you may ; and in convenient time let there 
be houses built them, according to the agreement we have 
made with them. We doubt not but these gentlemen, your 
ministers, will agree lovingly together; and for cherishing 
of love betwixt them, Ave pray you carry yourself impartial- 
ly to all. For the manner of their exercising their mhiistry, 
and teaching both our own people and the Indians, we leave 
that to themselves, hoping they will make God's Word the 
rule of their actions, and mutually agree in the discharge of 
their duties. And because their doctrine will hardly be well 
esteemed whose persons are not reverenced, we desire that 
both by your own example, and by commanding all others 
to do the like, our ministers may receive due honor." 

Those three gentlemen, then, were to be the established 



462 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XX. 

clergy of the colony — " our ministers," as employed by lis 
and responsible to us — " your ministers," as you are to have 
the benefit of their ministry. After instructing the colonial 
o-overnor on many other subjects, the Company has more to 
say about its clergymen, and his duty as governor over them : 
" "We have, in the former jjart of our letter, certified you of 
the good hopes we have of the love and unanimous agree- 
ment of our ministers, they having declared themselves to us 
to be of one judgment, and to be fully agreed on the manner 
how to exercise their ministry, which we hope will be by 
them accordingly performed. Yet because it is often found 
that some busy persons, led more by their will than any 
good warrant out of God's Word, take opportunities by need- 
less questions to stir up strife, and by that means to beget a 
question and bring men to declare some diflference in judg- 
ment — most commonly in things indiflferent, from which 
small beginnings great mischiefs have followed — we pray 
you and the rest of the council, if any such disputes shall 
happen among you, that you suppress them, and be careful 
to maintain peace and unity." 

Religious uniformity, then, was to be maintained in the 
Puritan colony by its governor and council, under the au- 
thority of the Company. No theory of religious libertj' 
found entertainment in the minds of those earnest and godly 
men when they planned their heroic enterprise. In their 
Utopia there was no room for the propagation or assertion 
of erroneous opinions, even about " things indifierent." There- 
fore, in the Utopian commonwealth which they were calling 
into existence, "needless questions that stir up strife" were 
not to be permitted ; and a godly magistracy, abhorrent 
alike of superstition and of schismatic reformation, was to 
judge as to the needfulness or needlessness of any question 
on which there might be a strife of opinions. In the planta- 
tion of the Massachusetts Bay, "such disputes" were to be 
suppressed ; and Governor Endicott, with the council which 
the Company in this letter .assigned to him, must " be careful 



A. D. 1629.] A PURITAN COLOXT. 463 

to maintain peace and unity." The voice of one crying in 
the wilderness to proclaim a theory of " soul- liberty " — if 
such a voice should utter itself within the Company's domain 
— must be stifled. 

The letter gives yet another glimpse of the views which 
the Company held about ministers in its colony. An unfor- 
tunate Separatist — one "Mr. Ralph Smith, a minister" — had 
desired passage in one of the Company's ships, hoping, per- 
haps, to escape, by fleeing into New England, the penalties 
from which the Pilgrims fled into Holland, and which the 
laws of England provided against such crimes as they were 
guilty of His desire " was granted him," said the Company, 
"before we understood of his diflerence in judgment in some 
things from our ministers." What could they do ? The per- 
mission might have been revoked ; but, alas ! his goods were 
already on shipboard before they knew what he was. Such 
being the case, they were too magnanimous to refuse him a 
passage — perhaps they were also in too much of a hurry. 
Yet the governor must be instructed to be on his guard 
against that anomalous minister. "Forasmuch as from 
hence it is feared there may grow some distraction among 
you if there should be any siding (though we have a very 
good opinion of his honesty), we shall not, we hope, ofl:end 
in charity to fear" — and to provide against — " the worst that 
may grow from their different judgments." As if they said, 
We can not but anticipate the conflict that may arise be- 
tween our ministers and this interloper who disowns and de- 
nounces all national churches, " We have therefore thought 
fit to give you this order, that unless he will be conformable 
to our government, you suffer him not to remain within the 
limits of our grant." What they were endeavoring was to 
open a safe refuge for clergy and laity who could not in con- 
science conform to the ecclesiastical regulations in England ; 
but the minister who would dwell within the limits of their 
territory must "be conformable to their government." No 
doubt, much maybe said to justify their fears and to excuse 



464 GENESIS OP THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

their precautions; but the fact is nevertheless important to 
our story, 1 

At last, after the many delays incident to the fitting out 
of such an expedition, three vessels, strongly manned and 
heavily armed, set sail, with one hundred and ninety-two 
passengers, and " all manner of munition and provision for 
the plantation." 2 Among the passengers on one of those 

' The letter, preserved in the archives of Massachusetts, was printed by Dr. 
Young in his " Chron. of Massachusetts," p. 141-171. An earnest care for the 
moral and religious welfare of the colony, and especially of those who were 
employed in the service of the Company, is manifest in many passages besides 
those relating to the ministers. The servants of the Company were to be dis- 
tributed into families, each with its chief, who was to maintain " morning and 
evening family duties," and to hold a watchful eye over his household, " that 
disorders may be prevented and ill weeds nipped before they take too great 
a head." All those servants must " be kept to labor, as the only means to 
reduce them to civil, yea, a godly life, and to keep youth from falling into 
many enormities." All inhabitants, as well as the Company's servants, were 
enjoined to "surcease their labor every Saturday throughout the year at 
three of the clock in the afternoon," and to " spend the rest of that day in 
catechising and preparation for the Sabbath, as the ministers should direct."' 
The old Planters, before Endicott's arrival, had engaged in the planting of 
tobacco, and were still desiring to pursue that business. On that point the 
Puritan feeling in London was strong. The letter spoke of tobacco-planting 
as "a trade by this whole Company generally disavowed, and utterly dis- 
claimed by some of the greatest Adventurers among us, who absolutely de- 
clared themselves unwilling to have any hand in this plantation if we intend- 
ed to cherish or permit the planting thereof, in any other kind than for a 
man's private use for mere necessity." Endicott and his council were there- 
fore instructed that though they might tolerate for a time the planting of 
that weed by the old Planters (but by nobody else) under proper restrictions, 
they must have "an especial care, with as much conveniency as may be, 
utterly to suppress the planting of it except for mere necessity." At the 
same time there was a touch of moral suasion in the statement that the price 
of tobacco in the London market was not much more than enough to pay the 
freight and duty, and that," there being such great quantities made in other 
places," there was little hope of its becoming more profitable to New En- 
gland producers. 

' The three ships were "the Talbot, a good and strong ship of 300 tons 
and nineteen pieces of ordnance, and served with thirty mariners;" the 



A.D. 1629,] A PURITAN COLONY. 465 

three vessels were several families of the Pilgrim Church, 
who had come from Leyden, and whose destination was to 
Plymouth. The three ministers employed by the Company 
were assigned one to each vessel. By their contract with 
the Company, they were under obligation " to do their en- 
deavor in their places of the ministry, as well in preaching 
and catechising, as also in teaching or causing to be taught 
the Company's servants and their children, as also the sav- 
ages and their children, whereby to their uttermost to further 
the main end of this plantation," which was declared to be, 
" by the assistance of Almighty God, the conversion of the 
savages." On the other side, the Company contracted to pay 
each of the three an outfit of twenty pounds— wherewith to 
purchase "apparel and other necessities for the voyage"— 
ten pounds for the purchase of books, which should remain 
for the use of his successor, and a salary of twenty pounds 
annually for three years. In addition to the little stipend, 
each of them was to have, for himself and his family, " neces- 
saries of diet, housing, and firewood," as well as transporta- 
tion to New England, and a free passage homeward if at the 
end of three years he should not desire to remain. A par- 
sonage house was to be built, " and certain lands allotted 
thereunto," for each minister and his successors. At the end 
of three years, each was to receive a hundred acres of land 
as his own ; and at the end of seven years, should he remain 
so long, another hundred. Each of them had also an assur- 
ance that, if he should die in New England, the Company 
would provide for his wife and children during her widow- 
hood and the continuance of her abode in their colony. Hig- 
ginson, in consideration of his eight children, was to have 



George, of the same tonnage and an equal number of seamen, with an arma- 
ment of twenty guns : and the Lions Whelp (or Lion), " a neat and nimble 
ship " of only 1 20 tons, but carrying eight guns and "many mariners." En- 
gland being then at war with Spain, merchants' vessels were necessarily armed 
vessels. The thirty-five Plymouth people seem to have been passengers in 
the Lion, which was commanded by their tried friend William Fierce. 



460 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

thirty pounds instead of twenty for his outfit, and an addi- 
tion often pounds annually to his stipend.^ 

The incidents of the Talhofs voyage were carefully re- 
corded by Higginson, who was assigned to that vessel, as 
Skelton was to the George^ and Bright to the Lion. On a 
Saturday (April 25=May 5, 1629), she dropped down the 
Thames from Gravesend with only a faint breeze ; and near 
the mouth of the river they rested that night, and " kept 
Sabbath the next day." At the end of another week, the 
ship, after sundry adversities, and " with much tacking and 
turning," had not yet entered the Strait of Dover, but had 
been lying three days where a strong southwest wind, " caus- 
ing her to dance," gave her passengers their first experience 
of sea-sickness, and there her passengers again " kept Sab- 
bath " (May 3 = 13), The progress of two days more brought 
her "over against Yarmouth about eight of the clock at 
night." At that port some final arrangements were to be 
made for the long voyage, and the passengers had the op- 
portunity of going ashore. Saturday saw them again on 
shipboard, and there, on the next day, they kept their third 
Sabbath, under the ministration of Higginson. He, aftei- 
the morning service with his fellow-passengers, went ashore 
by invitation to preach at Yarmouth, where Captain Bur- 
leigh — " Captain of Yarmouth Castle, a grave, comely gentle- 
man, and of great age," who had been a sea-captain in Queen 
Elizabeth's time, and had been "prisoner in Spain three 
years "2 — expressed, with hospitable kindness, his interest in 
the voyage, and " earnestly desired to be certified of their 

' Young, " Chron. of Massachusetts," p. 207-212. 

- He was thus described by Winthrop, i., 4, who adds the information that, 
twenty years before, that old man and three of his sons were captains in ai 
expedition sent by Prince Henry (then Prince of Wales) to explore the coasi 
of Guiana. Men who had fought the Spaniards in the time of Queen Bess, 
and whose notions of the difference between Romanism and Protestantism 
had been made more definite by an experience of captivity in Spain, were 
likely to share in the antipathies and aspirations of the Puritans. 



A.D, 1629.] A PURITAN COLOXY. 467 

safe arrival in New England, and of the state of the conn- 
try." On Monday, "the Lion having taken in all her pro- 
vision for passengers," they^ sailed with a favoring wind ; 
hut it Avas not till two days later that the record could be 
made, "We left our dear native soil of England (May 13 = 
23) behind us, . . . and launched the same day a great way 
into the main ocean." 

One author tells us : "When they came to the Land's End, 
Mr. Higginson, calling np his children and other passengers 
unto the stern of the shij) to take their last sight of England, 
said, ' We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to say 
at their leaving of England, Farewell, Babylon ! farewell, 
Rome ! but we will say, Farewell, dear England, farewell the 
church of God in England and all the Christian friends there. 
We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church 
of England, though we can not but separate from the cor- 
ruptions in it ; but we go to piMctice the positive part of 
church reformation, and propagate the Gospel in America.' " 
We may not affirm, Avithout better authority, that there was 
just that scene enacted on the deck of the Talbot; but we 
know that the words thus ascribed to Higginson might have 
been spoken by him, then and there, with perfect sincerity. 
The Separatist minister, Ralph Smith, was among the pas- 
sengers, and for that reason those words were more likely to 
be spoken. They express the spirit and intention both of 
the corporation which was planting the colony of Massachu- 
setts Bay, and of the nonconforming ministers whom it was 
sending forth to make that a Christian and a Puritan colony. 
Those ministers, and the Company that employed them, were 
not Ritualists — they had small reverence for any imposed 
forms of prayer; they were not Episcopalians; but they 
were loyal to "the church of God in England" as a Nation- 

' The Talhot, commanded by Master Beecher, and the Lion, commanded 
by Master William Pierce, sailed together. . . . The George had been dis 
patched some ten days earlier, "having some special and urgent cause of 
hastening her passage." 



'i-QS GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XX. 

al Church. They were going to plant the church of God in 
another country where they could " practice the positive part 
of church reformation" without making a schism, where the 
Act of Uniformity would have no force, and where bishops 
and High Commission could not oppress them. 

Their first Lord's day at sea was four weeks after their em- 
barkation. On that day (May 1*7 = 27) it was discovered that 
two of Higginson's children were ill with small-pox, that ter- 
rible contagion having been "brought into the ship by one 
Mr. Browne," who had the disease when he embarked with the 
rest at Gravesend. One of the two children, Mary, about five 
years of age, died the next Tuesday ; the other, Samuel, at 
last recovered. Afllioted by sickness and death, and at the 
same time encountering adverse winds, the passengers agreed 
to "keep a solemn day of fasting and prayer." In the serv- 
ices of that day. Smith, the Separatist minister, was permit- 
ted to assist. Higginson's record of that day is character- 
istic not only of himself but of his fellow-voyagers. "There 
being two ministers in the ship, Mr. Smith and myself, we 
endeavored, together Avith others, to consecrate the day, as 
a solemn fasting and humiliation to Almighty God, as a 
furtherance of our present work. And it pleased God the 
ship was becalmed all day, so that we were freed from any 
encumbrance. And as soon as we had done prayers (behold 
the goodness of God !), about seven o'clock at night, the wind 
turned to northeast, and we had a fair gale that night as a 
manifest evidence of the Lord's hearing our prayers. I heard 
some of the mariners say they thought this was the first sea- 
fast that ever was kept." Another fast-day they had before 
the voyage ended. While keeping their six Sabbaths on 
the Atlantic, they found the Sunday weather, in almost every 
instance, favorable to their religious services — as if the sea 
itself, and the winds, were resting with them. Their sev- 
enth Sabbath was in the harbor of Cape Ann, The next day 
(June 29= July 9, 1629), they were piloted through "the cu- 
rious and difficult entrance into the spacious harbor of Naura- 



A.D. 1629.] A PURITAN COLONY. 469 

keag," wondering, as they passed along, " to behold so many 
islands replenished with thick wood and high trees, and 
many fair green pastures." The George was already there, 
having arrived seven days earlier. 

At the end of the journal, Higginson recorded, with thank- 
ful mind, a summary of "divers things" which, in his re- 
view of the voyage, seemed to demand a devout acknowl- 
edgment of God's providence over him and his companions : 

" First, through God's blessing, our passage was short and 
speedy ; for whereas we had a thousand leagues ... to sail from 
Old to New England, we performed the same in six weeks 
and three days" from Yarmouth to Naumkeag. "Secondly, 
our passage was comfortable and easy for the most part, 
having ordinarily fair and moderate wind." ..." Thirdly, 
our passage was also healthful to our passengers," for, not- 
withstanding the small-pox, and though "we were, in all 
reason, in wonderful danger all the way, our ship being 
greatly crowded with passengers," there were only three 
deaths on the voyage. 

" Fourthly, our passage was both pleasant and profitable. 
For we received instruction and delight in beholding the 
wonders of the Lord in the deep waters — sometimes seeing 
the sea around us appearing with a terrible countenance, and, 
as it were, full of high hills and deep valleys, and sometimes 
it appeared as a plain and even meadow. And ever and 
anon we saw divers kinds of fishes sporting in the great 
waters, great grampuses and huge whales, going by compan- 
ies and spouting up water streams. Those that love their 
own chimney-corner, and dare not go beyond their own 
town's end, shall never have the honor to see these wonder- 
ful works of Almighty God. 

"Fifthly, we had a pious and Christian-like passage; for I 
suppose passengers shall seldom find a company of more re. 
ligious, honest, and kind seamen than we had. We constant- 
ly served God morning and evening by reading and expound- 
ing a chapter, singing, and prayer; and the Sabbath was 



470 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. XX. 

solemnly kept, by adding to the former, preaching twice and 
catechising. And in our great need we kept two solemn 
fasts, and found a gracious effect. Let all that love and use 
fasting and praying take notice that it is as prevailable by 
sea as by land, wheresoever it is faithfully performed. Be- 
sides, the shipmaster and his company used every night to 
set their eight and twelve o'clock Avatches with singing and 
a psalm, and prayer that was not read out of a book," 

It was for the privilege of such prayer — " prayer not read 
out of a book " — that Puritans were crossing the Atlantic. 
When out of England, whether on the ocean or in the wil- 
derness, they felt themselves beyond the jurisdiction of the 
laws and the hierarchy that were oppressing the Church of 
England. The "plentiful provision of godly ministers" con- 
signed to Governor Endicott was distributed — Skelton and 
Higginsou to care for the moral and spiritual welfare of the 
settlement at Naumkeag, and Bright to another plantation 
which was to be immediately begun. 

The superfluous and undesired Ralph Smith, regarded as 
dangerous to the Puritan colony because of his Separatism, 
had been required to promise, " under his hand, that he would 
not exercise his ministry within the limits of the patent with- 
out the express leave of the governor on the spot." ^ Whether 
he obtained from Endicott a license to preach is not known, 
l)ut, with or without such license, he went to Nantasket, 
where Oldham had his trading station, and where a few other 
"straggling i:)eople" lived, who were perhaps thought to be 
in no great danger of being perverted from right ways by 
his preaching. He found there no considerable opening for 
the exercise of his ministry ; but, being there, he was soon 
found by some of the Plymouth peoi:)le whose business had 
brought them thither in a boat, and who were not afraid of 
him. He could not but be glad to become acquainted with 
men who knew, in their own experience, what it was to bear 

' Hutchinson, i., 10. 



A.D. 1629.] WHAT CAME OF THE PURITAN COLONY. 471 

the reproach and suspicions that rested on him. " Weary of 
being in that uncouth place, and in a poor house that would 
neither keep him nor his goods dry," he begged of them a 
passage to Plymouth. " They had no order for any such 
thing ;" and they might have remembered how Allerton was 
blamed for bringing poor Rogers over from England. But 
" seeing him to be a grave man, and understanding that he 
had been a minister," they " presumed and brought him," 
and with him "such things as they could well carry" of his 
goods. At Plymouth " he was kindly entertained and housed," 
and " the rest of his goods and servants were sent for." Im- 
mediately he became a helper to Brewster, preaching in the 
exercise of prophesying. When the church had become ac- 
quainted with his character and his gifts, and he had become 
a member of their brotherhood, he was " chosen into the 
ministry." Thus, at last, the Pilgrim Church had its pastor — 
the humble yet not unworthy successor of its lamented Rob- 
inson. He ■was not distinguished by eminent gifts ; he was 
not regarded as equal to his colleague Brewster, either in 
wisdom for government or in discourse for edification ; but 
he continued in office five or six years, and then resigned it, 
" partly by his own willingness, as thinking it too heavy a 
burden, and partly by the persuasion of others." 

While Smith, under the reproach of Separatism, was find- 
ing his way to the Separatist colony, Skelton and Higginson, 
as Puritans, were beginning to " practice the positive part of 
church reformation" at Salem. Having no occasion to in- 
quire how the endowments which the National Church in 
their native country had inherited from the ages before the 
Reformation Avere to be preserved and made available for the 
evangelization of the whole people, tliey arrived, before they 
were aware, at new conclusions. Governor Endicott, as we 
have seen, had entered upon a fraternal correspondence with 
the Governor of Plymouth, and, in his Christian intercourse 
with Deacon Fuller, he had learned that the Plymouth Sep- 
aratists were not so far out of the right way as he had once 



472 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XX. , 

thought. Probably the studies of the two clergymen were 
aided by conference with the governor, and with other intel- 
ligent and earnest men among the planters. The result was 
a conviction on their part that their appointment by the 
Company in London, though it might give them authority as 
chaplains to the Company's servants, did not place them in 
exactly right relations to the church of God in Salem, and 
that something must be done to supply that defect. 

Accordingly it was concluded that the ministers must be 
elected and introduced into office by the Christian people 
among whom they were to be overseers. The positive part 
of church reformation was to begin at that point. In strict 
conformity with Puritan ideas, the governor took the lead. 
"It pleased God," says a contemporaneous letter, "to move the 
heart of our governor to set apart a solemn day of humilia- 
tion for the choice of a pastor and teacher ;" and that was a 
great day in Salem — no buying and selling, no servile labor 
nor vain recreation, was permitted on that day. " The former 
part of the day being spent in prayer and teaching," the aft- 
ernoon was given to the solemnities of the election. In the 
letter just mentioned, the whole transaction is described. 
"The persons thought on" — Skelton and Higginson — "who 
had been ministers in England," and who had been in some 
way named as candidates, were requested to give their views 
concerning the way in which God calls men to an official 
ministry of the Word. "They acknowledged there was a 
twofold calling: the one an inward calling, when the Lord 
moved the heart of a man to take that calling upon him and 
titted him with gifts for the same ; the second (the out- 
ward calling) was from the people, when a company of be- 
lievers are joined together in covenant to walk together in 
all the ways of God." The people, thus convened by their 
governor, knew that the two men before them had the quali- 
fications prescribed by the apostle Paul as necessary to a 
bishop.' They approved the answers M^hich had shown that 

' 1 Tim.iii , 1-7. 



A.D. 1629.] WHAT CAME OF THE PURITAN COLONY. 473 

those two men expected to derive their right as official min- 
isters of Christ in the church, not from a prelatical or hie- 
rarchical vocation, but only from an inward call from God's 
Spirit together with an outward call from the church itself. 
So they were ready to give their voices in the election of 
their pastor and teacher. 

"Their choice was after this manner: Every fit member 
wrote, in a note, his name whom the Lord moved him to 
think was fit for a pastor, and so, likewise, whom they would 
have for teacher." When the votes were counted, it appear- 
ed (what was doubtless arranged and understood beforehand) 
that the majority of voices " was for Mr. Skelton to be pastor, 
and Mr. Higginson to be teacher." But a mere declaration 
of the choice was not regarded as introducing the chosen 
into their offices. An apostolic ordination must follow, for 
it was not to be admitted that the "holy orders" which 
these men had received in the National Church of Old En- 
gland could invest them with any ecclesiastical power or of- 
fice in free New England. Not much of ritual pomp was 
there in the ordination of the chosen pastor and teacher. 
" They accepting the choice, Mr. Higginson, and three or four 
more of the gravest members of the church, laid their hands 
on Mr. Skelton, using prayers therewith. This being done, 
then there was imposition of hands on Mr. Higginson" 
in like manner. Such was the first New England ordina- 
tion.^ 

A first step had been taken in the positive part of church 
reformation. It seems a long stride, but we must not regard 
it as an intentional or conscious departure from the Puritan 
theory. The right of the godly people in every parish to 
choose their own minister— especially if it be done under the 
supervision of a godly magistracy-might well be recognized 



' Letter from Charles Gott to Governor Bradford, dated "Salem, .TulyBO, 
anno 1629." in Bradford's "Letter-Book" (Mass. Historical Collections, iii., 

67, 6S). 



474 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHUECHES. [CH. XX. 

and established in founding a Puritan comraonwealtli, for it 
was one of those rights wliich hierarchical usurpation had 
taken away, and which the unfinished English Reformation 
had not restored. It was evident, also, to many a Puritan 
mind, that ordination ouglit to follow, and not precede, that 
outward calling by the people which was to recognize the 
inward calling by the Spirit of God. The Salem Puritans, 
then, in formally electing their own ministers, and in their 
solemn ordination of the ministers whom they had chosen, 
were not conscious of separating themselves from the Puri- 
tan party in the church of their native country. They were 
only doing what the principle of thorough church reformation 
seemed to require of them in their circumstances. But their 
ecclesiastical organization was not completed by what they 
had done in that assembly. An election of elders and dea- 
cons was proposed, and candidates were named ; but, on a sug- 
gestion then made, it was judged best to wait for the arrival 
of another company from England, and so that day's trans- 
actions were ended. 

On further consideration, it seems to have been thought 
that the proposed delay was, for some reason, inexpedient ; 
and soon " another day of humiliation " was appointed for 
the election of elders and deacons. But, in the mean time, 
such questions as whether there were a church in Salem — 
and, if so, who its members were, and how they were to be 
distinguished and identified — must be disposed of Were 
all the nominally Christian people — the christened people — 
who dwelt in Salem, the church of Salem? If only the god- 
ly were the church, and were to participate in church afiairs, 
who was to divide between the godly and the worldly ; and 
how were the ungodly to be hindered from taking every thing 
into their own hands ? The necessity of constituting a church, 
more distinctly and formally than had yet been done, be- 
came apparent. Neither the ministers nor the governor "had 
as yet waded so far into the controversy of church discipline 
as to be very positive in any of those points " on which the 



A.D. 1629.] AVIIAT CAME OF THE PURITAN COLONY, 475 

dispute between Puritans and Separatists turned. Yet, tak- 
ing such hints as they found in the New Testament, they 
deemed it " necessary for those wlio intended to be of the 
church solemnly to enter into a covenant engagement one 
with another, in the presence of God, to walk together before 
him acc'ording to liis Word." Of course they were not igno- 
lant that Sepai'atists in P]ngland formed their schismatic 
chiii'clies in that way — but what then ? They were not in 
England, but in the promised land of Massachusetts Bay, 
and were already separated from the National Church of 
their native country, not by schism, but by a thousand leagues 
of ocean ; and in what other way could the Church of 
Ciirist in Salem come into a definite form and organization? 
After they had come to such a conclusion concerning the 
church, another conclusion was inevitable, namely, that, in 
the right order, the church must be constituted before and 
not after tlie election and ordination of its officers. 

In accordance with these conclusions, Higginson, at the 
desire of others, drew up a form in which the thirty persons 
selected to be the first members of a church might with one 
voice make profession of their faith and engage to walk to- 
gether in obedience to Christ. Thirty copies of the form 
were wn-itten out, that each of the thirty whose faith and 
mutual covenant were to be publicly expressed might con- 
sider it well. Then, on the appointed day of humiliation, 
they, in those words, declared to each other and before all 
their Chi'istian faith and hope, and their engagements to each 
other and to Christ as members of one church; and there- 
upon the pastor and the teacher w^ere, by the constituted 
church, called and "ordained to their several dffices" as 
before. The former ordination had made them the ministers 
of a parish; tliis made them the presbyter-bishops of a Xew 
Testament church.' 



' The account of that second ordination is given both bv Hubbard (p. 1 1 8. 
1 1'J) and by Morton. It is difficult to think that either of them could have 

II 



476 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [CH. XX. 

It had been an-anged tliat the transactions of that day 
should be consummated by a formal recognition of fraternity 
and mutual confidence between the church that was coming 
into form and organization in the Puritan colony and tl>e 
Separatist church at Plymoutli. Among the leading mem- 
bers of the Massachusetts corporation in London, were some 
who had withdrawn their patronage from the old colony lest 
"they should sin against God in building up such a people" 
stained with the guilt of renouncing all national churches; 
and they had undertaken to have a colony in which there 
should 1)6 no place for Separatism. But no sooner was their 
plantation begun than the leading men among their Planters 
learned to honor the saintly and heroic qualities, and all that 
was essential in the church polity, of those Pilgrim pioneers 
who had borne so long the odious name of Brownists, A 
delegation from Plymouth was expected that day at Salem. 
Adverse wunds hindered the voyage of the delegates across 
the great bay; aiid the business of the day went forward 
without " their direction and assistance," which had been 
desired because Plymouth was supposed to have the wisdom 
of experience in the conduct of a self-governed church. But 
later in the day, before the solemnities of ordination were 
concluded, the " messengers of Plymouth church," Governor 
Bradford himself being one of them, "came into the assem- 

been mistaken. After the sacerdotal idea (that ordination is almost a sacra- 
ment, and, like baptism, must not be repeated) had begun to be entertained 
in New England, the double ordination in Salem became a stumbling-block 
to some historians. Cotton Mather is silent about it. Prince (p. 262, 263) 
is perplexed over it. Felt (i., 11.3-116) shares in the perplexity. The 
fact is that Higginson, Skelton, and all the first fathers of the New England 
cliurches, repudiated the sacerdotal idea entirely. They acknowledged no 
ordination at large. They admitted no such distinction as is now made be- 
tween ordination and installation. If a man had been ordained by bishops 
in England, that was, to them, no reason why he should not be ordained 
again and again, with imposition of hands, so often as he was to be inducteil 
into office in any church. They were riglit, unless sacerdotalism is the right 
ilieorv of Christianity. 



A.D. 1629.] WHAT CAME OF THE PURITAN COLONY. 477 

bly." They saw what was going on, they heard tlie state- 
ment of what had been done — the mutual and public profes- 
sion, the holy covenant, the free election by the church of its 
own officers ; and then, in behalf of their own church, they 
declared "their approbation and concurrence." By them 
that elder church, cradled at Scrooby, nurtured and schooled 
at Leyden, and now at last victorious over the sufferings and 
temptations of the wilderness, greeted its younger sister, in 
apostolic fashion, with " the right hands of fellowship," The 
church that had been brought over the ocean now saw an- 
other church, the first-born in America, holding the same 
faith in the same simplicity of self-government under Christ 
alone. It had become manifest that, in the freedom of this 
great Avilderness, there was no reason why the Separatist 
should sejjarate from the Puritan, nor why the Puritan, who 
came "to practice the positive part of church reformation," 
should purge himself from Separatism. The first church 
formed in Amei'ica was formed by a voluntary separation 
from the world and a voluntary gathering into Christian fel- 
lowship. Its charter was the New Testament, and from that 
charter it deduced its right to exist and to govern itself by 
officers of its own choice and ordination. It acknowledged 
no king in Christ's kingdom save Christ himself, and no priest 
in the spiritual temple save the one High-Priest within the 
veil. Robinson had not lived to see that day; but he had 
foreseen it, and his prophecy was fulfilled.' 

Such was the beginning of a distinctively American church 
liistory. If we trace its progress, we shall find that it is es- 
sentially the history of voluntary churches — the history of 
tendencies and conflicts which have come to the result that 
now every American church foi'ms itself by elective affinity, 
the principle of separation. We shall find that it is the his- 

^ " For, said he, there will be no difference between the conformable min- 
isters and you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances out of the 
kingdom " of England. — Winslow, in Young, p. 398. 



478 GENESIS OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES. [cH. \X. 

tory of Christianity working toward its own emancipation 
from secular power; and that it is at tlie same time the his- 
tory of tlie state learning slowly, but at last eftectually, that 
it has no jurisdiction in the sphere of religion, and that its 
equal duty to all churches is the duty, not of enforcing their 
censures, but only of protecting their peaceable worship and 
their liberty of prophesying. 



INDEX. 



Abbott, Archbishop, 26T, 290. 

Abigail, the, 454. 

Act of Uuiformity. See Uniformit'j. 

to Retain the Queen's Subjects iu 

Obedience, 191, 194, 210. 
Admiral of New England, 391. 
Adventurers. See Merrhant Adventurers. 
Ainsworth, Henry, 150, 191, 220, 225, 220, 

231, 235, 236, 238, 240, 29T, 20S, 359. 
Allertou, Isaac, 258, 333, 335, 339, 35T, 359, 

424, 43T, 439, 440, 441. 
Allotment, 320, 388, 439. 
Ames, William, 295, 296. 
Amsterdam, 214, 221. Separatist Church 

at, 191,217-226, 236. 
Amsterdam Trading Company's offer to 

the Pilgrims, 2T6. 
Anabaptists, lOT, 122, 142, 160, 221, 224, 266. 
Anne, the, 384, 3S0, 3ST, 393, 394, 405. 
Aiitioch, church at, 23, 25, 20, 40. 
Ap-Henry. See Penry. 
Apostles, their ecclesiastical polity, lT-33. 
Archdeacon's Court, 11. 
Armiuian controversy, 241, 242. 
Arnold, Benedict, 89. 

Articles of agreement between the Pil- 
grims and the Adventurers, 211, 280, 282, 

283, 286. 
Assistants to governors, 288, 339, 404. 
Austerfleld, 202. 
Aylmer, Bishop, 96, 98, 99, 103, 104, 120, 145. 

B. 

Bacon, Lord, 92, 246. 

Balch, John, 451. 

Bancroft, Archbishop, 201, 203, 209, 290. 

, George, 265. 

Baptist churches, vii., 224. 

Barnstable, 347. 

Barrowe, Henry, 91-105, 110-121, 127, 147, 

148-154, 193. 
Barrowists, 93, 263, 408. 
Bartlett, W. H., 202. 
Beaver, 329, 354, 379, 431. 
Beecher, Thomas, 467. 



Beer, 259, 312, 319, 325, 323. 

Bernard, Richard, 244, 403. 

Bible, Tyndale's translation, 62. Geneva 
translation, 275. 

Billiugton, John, 336, 337, 347, 413. 

Bishops, in the first century, 34, 38. Dis- 
tinguished from elders, 38. Election of, 
45. Regarded as civil officers, 200. 

Block Island, 420. 

Blossom, Thomas, 434. 

Boston, in England, 210, 211. 

, in Massachusetts, 348, 359, 307, 376, 

419. 

Bowman, Christopher, 135. 

Boys, Edward, 142. 

Bradford, Alice, 384, 385. 

, Dorothy, 324. 

, William, viii., 92, 130, 197, 207, 216, 

218, 220, 229, 230, 234, 241. 242, 258, 314, 
317, 320, 321, 324, 329, 333, 334, 337, 339, 
352, 357, 359, 362, 364, 365, 368, 369, 370, 
371, 372, 378, 379, 381, 382, 384, 385, 380, 
394, 399, 415, 416, 419, 424, 430, 433, 440, 
443, 448, 449, 476. 

Brewer, Thomas, 230, 271, 281, 302. 

Brewster, William, 194-196, 201, 204, 207, 
210, 211, 229, 230, 231, 234, 235, 238, 254, 
255, 258, 203, 267, 208, 271-273, 275, 276, 
298-302, 324, 333, 339, 365, 384, 399, 404, 
407, 416, 424, 445, 471. 

Bright, Francis, 461, 470. 

Brook, Benjamin, 109. 

Browne, Robert, 80-85, 88-90, 166. 

Brownists and Brownism, 91, 150, 194, 226, 
244, 263, 304, 398, 408, 421, 422, 423, 425, 476. 

Buckhurst, Lord, 98, 99, 100, 102. 

Burial Hill, 318, 319, 320, 364. 

Burleigh, Captain, 466. 

, Lord, 98-101, 105, 120, 122, 137, 140, 

153, ISl, 187, ISS. 

Bury St. Edmunds, 79. 



Calvin and Calviuism,51, 53,237,241,267,303. 
Canon law, 38, 44, 45, 70, 198. 
Canonicu.s, 357, 358. 



480 



IXDEX. 



Cambridge, 150. 

Cape AiiD, 420, 422, 433, 437, 447-452, 46S. 

Cod, 30S, 313-317, 318, 824, 343, 347, 

420. 
Carletou, Sir Dudley, 271, 272. 
Carpenter, Alice, 3S4. 
Carlwright, Thomas, 70, 71, 74, 134, 206. 
Carver, Johu, 232, 235, 258, 262, 263, 270, 

280, 286, 293, 310, 320, 332-384, 336, 338, 

339, 350, 852, 354. 

, Katherine, 339. 

Cattle introduced into New Euglaud, 393, 

396. 
Cedar, 311. 

Celibacy of clergy, 40^8. 
Ceremonies, 68, 73, 74, 95. 
Charity, the, 364, 393, 390, 405, 406, 448. 
Charles I., King of England, 278, 434, 451, 

457. 

River, 452. 

Charter of the Massachusetts Company, 

457. 
Christianity in its beginning, 17. In the 

fourth century, 34. 
Christmas, 319, 350. 
Church, Catholic or Universal, its unity, 

20-28. In New England, 320, 388. 
of England, 01-07, 74, 97, 106, 107, 126, 

133, 147, 156, 158, 104, 190, 198, 205, 294, 457. 

of Holland, 244, 205, 301. 

of Scotland, 160, 206, 271. At Ley- 
den, 237, 302. 

polity, growth of, 30. 

, Roman Catholic, 45, 50, 184. 

, the false, 110-119. • 

-, the Pilgrim, its identity, 275, 276. 



See Sc7-oobij, Leyden, and Plymouth. 
Churches, French. See French Reformed. 

, National, 51. See Nationalism. 

, the primitive, 17-33, 82-S5, 190. 

, the Separatist, 144, 155, 186, 201, 244. 

Clark, master's mate of the Mayjlowcr,^!^. 
Clergy and laity in the church, 40, 44. 
Clyfton, Richard, 207, 230, 231, 234, 240. 
Colony, proposed, by Separatists under 

Elizabeth, 254. 
planned by Pilgrims at Leyden, 

254-262, 388. 
Commissary and commissary courts, 77, 

197, 198, 448. 
Common house at Plymouth, 319, 320. 
Common Prayer, Book of. See Liturgy. 
Communion, 245, 294-302. 
Communism imposed on the Pilgrims, 282, 

283, 291. 
Compact, 309, 310, 408, 423. 
Conant, Roger, 44S, 451, 452, 453, 454. 
Contirmation by the apostles, 32. 
Conformists, 79, 446. 



Congregationalism, 53, 88. 

Consistory, 52. Consistory Court, 77, 100. 

Conspiracy, Indian, 374, 378. Lyford and 

Oldham's, 409-414. 
Constautine, 35, 38, 39, 44. 
Contribution, in the church at Jerusalem, 

20. Identical with communion, 27. 

Practiced by the Pilgrims, 239. 
Conventicles, 131-134, 140. 
Convocation, 61. 
Cooper, Bishop, 159. 
Coppin, Robert, 318, 315. 
Copping, John, 85-88. 
Corinth, the church at, 23, 24. 
Corn. See Indian Corn. 
Cosins, Dr., 95. 
Council for New England. See PlynwiUh 

Council. 

for Virginia. See Virginia Council. 



Councils of Congregational churches, 235, 

230. 
Court. See High Commission aud Ecclesi- 

afitical Courts. 
Court of Arches, 77. Of Delegates, ibid. 
Cradock, Matthew, 453, 458. 
Cranmer, Archbishop, 58, 62. George, 204. 
Cummaquid, 347. 
Cushman, Robert, 258, 262, 263, 271, 273, 

274. 277, 280, 284, 286, 287, 306, 349, 353, 

354, 365, 385, 390, 398, 899, 404, 430, 431, 

433, 434, 447. 449. 
, Thomas, 353. 



Cusbman's sermon, 353. 

D. 

Dartmouth, the Mayflower and Speedwell 
at, 306, 307. 

Davenport, John, 450, 401. 

Davison, William, 194, 195. 

Day, George E., 232. 

Deaconess, in the Separatist Church at 
Amsterdam, 220. 

Deacons, at Jerusalem, 20-22. In Martyr 
Church, 135. At Leyden, 232. 

Delft-Haven, 285, 303, 320, 384. 

Democratic elections in the church at Je- 
rusalem, 18, 20. 

Dexter, Henry M., xi., 194, 232. 

Diocesan bishops, 39. 

Discovery, the, 368. 

Douatists, 121, 122, 142, 408. 

Dorchester Adventurers, 447-4.50. 

, in England, 446, 447, 451. 

Dover, in New Hampshire, 353. 

Dress, Indian, 328, 330, 333. 

Drought, 381. 

Duel at Plymouth, 341. 

Dutch, 211, 212, 286, 304, 390, 444. 

Dutch republic. See Netherlands. 



INDEX. 



481 



E. 

Eastham, 34". 

Eaton, Theophilns, 453. 

Ecclesiastical courts, 73, 7C-79, lOS. 

investitures, 40. 

Edward VI., King of England, C2. 

Egerton, Attorney-Geueral, 149. 

Elders, teaching and ruling, 84, 97, 114, 135, 

224, 231, 232, 238, 293, 39S, 403. 
Election, doctrine of, 112, 113. 

— • of deacons, 20-22. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 02, 03, 6S, 69, 

Tl, 73, 74, 78, 88, 91, 147, 100, 183, 184, 

ISO, 194, 195, 200, 388. 
Embassy from Plymouth to Pokanoket. 

342-340. 
Eudicott, John, 453, 454-456, 45S, 464, 471. 
Episcopal government, 38, 43, 44, .52. 
Episcopalian, 407. 
Episcopius, Simon, 241, 242. 
Evangelism, 155-105. 
Excommunication, 54, 55, 59, 74, S3, 84, 100, 

108. 

F. 

Famine at Plymouth, anticipated, 356. Its 

beginning, 301. Its continuance, 881. 

Its end, 3SS. 
Pasting days, 274, 284, 382, 472. 
Felt, Joseph B., ix., 353, 476. 
Fish and fishery, 27S, 280, 338, 362, 3TS, 390, 

421, 444, 447. 
Fisher, George P., xi., 49. 
Fletcher, Thomas, 431, 432. 
Forefathers'-day, 353. 
Fortification at Plymouth, 358, 363, 364. 
Fortune, the, 349, 350, 351, 352, 356, 857, 359, 

361, 362, 364, 365, 384, 385, 386. 
Forward preachers, 402, 403, 407. 
Fox, John, 66. 

Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 50. 
Freke, Bishop, 79. 
French, 345, 349, 364. 

discipline, 422^24. 

Reformed churches, 207, 269, 301, 

423. 

Fuller, Samuel, 384, 415, 455, 456, 471. 
Furs, 278, 368, 421, 431, 432. 



G. 

Gainsborough, church at, 206. 
Generality, 425, 427, 431, 436, 437 

442. 
Geneva, 51, 52. 

Bible. See Bible. 

Service-book, 76. 

George, the, 465, 466. 
Gieseler, John K., 53. 
Giffard, George, 120-124, 403. 



438, 



Gloucester, 447. 

Gofle, Thomas, 453. 

Gorges, Sir Ferdinand, 390. Robert, 391, 
393. 

Gott, Charles, 472. 

Government, civil, established by the Pil- 
grims, 292, 444. 

Governors of Plymouth colony, 810, 339, 
391, 444. 

of the Mayflower and Speedwell, 288. 

Greene, Richard, 369, 370. 

, William, 365. 

Greenwood, John, 93, 105-109, 123-127, 135, 
137, 138, 142, 147, 148-154, 193. 

Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, 212. 

Ground-nuts, 335, 370, 877, 392. 

Guiana, 200, 279. 

Gurnet Head, 315, 318. 

H. 

Hall, Bishop, 243, 244, 246. 

llamdeu, John, 373. 

Hampton. See Southampton. 

Hanbury, viii., 85, 130, 145, 150, 227, 298. 

Ilattou, Lord-Keeper, 9S, 99, 100, 104, 122, 
149. 

Head of the Church of England. See Su- 
premacy. 

Helwisse, Thomas, 245. 

Henry VIIL, King of England, 61, 63. 

Heresy, 102, 159, 160, 249. 

Hessia, 53. 

Higgiusou, Francis, 459-401, 460-470, 471- 
473. 

High Commission, 76, 78, 79, 94-109, 120, 
147, 148, 104, 105, 187. 

Hildersham, Arthur, 460. 

Hilton, William, 353, 375. 

Hobbamoc, 360, 373, 375, 377. 

Hopkins, OceanuB, 307. 

, Samuel, 109, 153. 

, Stephen, 327, 329, 341, 342-346. 

House-lots, 820. 

House of worship, 204, 232. 

Houses, 347. 

Hubbard, William, 449, 475. 

Hudson River, 274, 321, 322, 396, 444. 

Hudson's Bay, 396. 

Hull, in Yorkshire, 211, 212. 

Hunt, the kiduai)per, 329, 331, 347. 

Hunter, Joseph, 202. 



Independency, 245. 
Indian challenge, 357. 

■ corn, 312, 313, 338, 343, 348, 349, 368, 

309, 370, 377, 880, 381, 432, 436. 

conspiracy, 374-378. 

Indians, 312-315, 319, 326-330, 342, 343, 348, 



482 



INDEX. 



34!), 357, 358, 360, S68, 3G9, 370, 379, 309, 
420, 43-2, 458, 461. 
Ireland, 398, 419. 



Jacob, Hen rv, 226, 227. 

, J. A., 33. 

James I., King of England, 167, 200, 201, 

203, 208, 202, 263, 269, 271, 332, 345. 
James, the. See Little Jamen. 
Jamestown, 390. 
Jerusalem, beginning of the chnrcli in, 

17-22. 
Johnson, Francis, 128-130, 134, 14"?, 186, 

187, 191, 217, 221, 222, 225, 236. 

, George, 218, 221, 222. 

, Isaac, 453, 459. 

, Lady Arbella, 459. 

Jones, master of the Mayfloioer, 312, 313, 

325, 336. 
Juniper, 311. 

K. 

Kennebec, 432. 

King. See Charles I., Kdward \'I., Henry 

VIII., James I., and Massas-iit. 
Kniston, George, 135. 
Knox, John, 66. 

L. 

Lambert, Francis, 53-59. 

Lambeth Palace, 94, 96, 122. 

Latimer, Hugh, 53, 66. 

Laud, Archbishop, 281, 451. 

Law, Christian and heathen, higher and 
lower, 42^44. 

Lay-elders, 52, 59. 

Lecturers in the Church of England, 123, 
126, 460. 

Lee, Nicholas, 135. 

Leicester, in England, 459, 460. 

Leyden, 220, 228-242, 303, 350, 352, 354, 366, 
384, 393, 398, 412, 435, 436, 440, 441-143, 455. 

Street, at Plymouth, 319. 

University, 220, 2,30, 233, 241, 242. 

Lincoln, Countess of, 273. 

-, family of the Earls of, 273. 

Lion, the, 465, 466, 467. 

Little James, the, 384, 431. 

Liturgy, the English, 62, 64, 87, 97, 99, 106, 
114,115,120. 

Lollards and Lollardism, 61, 62, 131, 147,189. 

Loudon Company. See Virginia Company. 

Council. See Virginia Compam/. 

Merchants. See Merchant Advent- 
urers. 

Partners, 440, 441. 

Lord's day. See Sabbath. 

Prayer, 97, 131. 



Low Countries. See Netherlands. 
Luther and Lutheranisin, 50, 53, 58, 61, 3i)3. 
Lyford, John, 398, 299, 403-420, 421, 422, 42:5, 
433,437,441,448,452. 

M. 

Magna Charta, ISO, 189-191. 

Maine, coast of, 379. 

Manomet Point, 318. 

Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 202. 

Marprelate, 163, 185. 

Marriages, 106, 107, 340. 

Martinists, 164. 

Martyr Church. See Smithwark Church. 

Mary, Queen of England, 71, 75. 145. 

Mary, Queen of Scotland, 195, 200. 

Massachusetts Bay, 376, 378, 391, 447, 452. 

Company, 453, 454, 456, 457, 460, 472. 

Indians, 374, 376, 378. 



Massasoit, 328, 332-334, 342-346, 357, 360, 
373. 

Mather, Cotton, 229. 467. 

Mayflower, the, 284, 286, 304, 306-308, 309, 
310, 312, 313, 314, 317, 320, 321, 322, 325, 
336, 337, 347, 349, 354, 384, 386, 423, 444. 

Melanchthon, Philip, 58. 

Merchant Adventurers, 274, 277, 280, 281- 
283, 287, 291, 306, 307, 337, 349, 350, 354, 
355, 356, 361, 365, 380, 383, 384, 385, 3S6, 
393, 394, 398, 399-403, 405, 417, 418, 419, 
421, 425, 430, 433, 434, 437, 439, 440, 449. 

, friendly minority, 424, 432. 

, malcontent majority, 422, 448, 44D. 

Merrimack, 452. 

Middleburg, 129, 217. 

Milman, Henry H., 33. 

Milton, John, 242. 

Ministers sent by the Massachusetts CoT!:- 
pany, 458, 459, 461, 462, 4C5, 470. 

Monastic orders, 47, 48. 

Morrell, William, 391, 393. 

Mortality at Plymouth, 324, 326. 

of Indians, 328, 346, 357. 



Morton, George, .384, 390. 
-, Nathaniel, 199,475. 



Mosquitoes in New England, 396. 
Mourt's Kelatiou, 390. 

N. 

Nantasket, 419, 437, 448, 470. 

Narraganset Bay, 345. 

Indians, 346, 357, 358, 363. 

Nationalism and National Churches, 52, 
67, 72, 73, 75, 112, 126, 390, 404, 406, 409, 
412, 421, 422, 446, 448, 457, 467. 

Nauset, 347, 374. 

Nausite Indians, 329, 349. 

Neal, Daniel, 70, 109, 227. 

Neander, John A.W., 33. 



INDEX, 



48^- 



Xetherlaiitl?, 104, 2(19, 21 G. 
New Amsterclain, 364, 444. 
New Euglixud, 1S4, 201, 215, 2T8, 308, 311, 

820, 321, 322, 341, 349, 3G8, 3TS, 390, 391, 

398, 452, 454. 
New H,-impshire, 353, 379. 
New Jersey, 274. 
New Netherlands, 27G. 
New York. See yew Awsterdam. 
Noucouformists, G7, 70, 197. 
Northampton, 100, 165. 
North parts of Virginia, 278, 309, 321, 390. 
Norwich, 79, 243. 
Notes of the church. 111. 
Nowell, Increase, 453. 

O. 

Oaths, 94, 96, lOG. 

Objections against Plymouth colony, 395- 
397. 

Offenders, way of dealing with, in primi- 
tive churches, 28. 

Old Catholics, 74. 

Oldham, John, 405-420, 422, 423, 437, 448, 
470. 

Order of piablic worship, 237-240. 

Ordination, 135, 231, 473, 475. 

Organization, 17, 31, 131. 

Oxford, 156. 



Paget, John, 298. 

Palfrey, John G., xi., 210, 451. 

, Peter, 451. 

Palmer,William, 111. 

Paomet, 343, 344, 374. 

Paragon, the, 381, 383. 

Parish assemblies, 107, 108, 121, 127, 1S6, 

190, 2!)4, 802. 
Parkhnrst, Bishop, 79. 
Parliament, 61, 73, 156, 159, 161, 165. 
Pastor in the church at Plymouth, 445. 
Pastoral letter, 288-292. 
Patent, negotiations for, 262-273. 

obtained, 273. 

worthless, 274. 

Patentees of Massachusetts, 453. 
Patuxet, 328, 331, 343. 
Pecksuot, 377, 378. 
Peltry (skins), 343. See Furs. 
Penry, Hellenor, 169, 170, 176. 

, John, 155-185, 191-193. 

Pentecost, 19. 

Peter-church at Leyden. 232, 285, 436. 

Phelipps, Thomas, 153, 154. 

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, 53, 58. 

Pickering, Edward, 365. 

Pierce, John, 366, 407. 

, William, 407, 412, 417, 41°, 419. 



Pilgrims, 186, 216, 253, 273, 274, 310, 317, 
319, 321, 323, 325, 330, 335, 354, 360, 3(>4, 
367, 383, 386, 388, 405, 409, 421, 422, 424, 
432, 444, 449. 

Pipe of peace, 334, 344. 

Piscataqua River, 379. 

Plague in London and in Leyden, 434. 

Planters of Plymouth, 280, 287, 291, 356, 
361, 380, 394, 437, 439. 

on their particular, 394, S95, 413, 437. 

at -Cape Ann and Naumkeag, 454, 

464. 

Plymouth, in England, 306, 307, 317, 350. 

, in New England, the :?irst land- 
ing, 316. Arrival of "the Mayflower, 
317. 

colony, 321, 337, 351, 855, 390, 391, 

424, 437, 444, 449. 

■, the church at, 399, 406, 410, 412, 414, 



'/7,7, 



417, 424, 470. 
Company or Council, 261, 278, 280, 

309, 317, 321, 322, 371, 379, 390, 391, 420, 

432, 433, 440, 444, 449, 452. 
— — harbor, 316, 324, 348. 
Rock, 274. 



Con- 



Pokauoket, 342, 373. 

Polyander, John, 241, 242. 

Poutilicals, 119, 125, 403, 408. 

Pope, the, 42, 45. 

Popham, Lord Chief Justice, 261, 

Portsmouth, 384. 

Prayer, 115, 116, 214. 

Preachers in the primitive churches, i 
In later times, 38. 

Precisians, 125. 

Presbytcrianism, 71. 

Presbytery, classical, 108, 110, 231, 
gregational, 108, 208, 223, 224, 232. 

Press, the secret, 160, 163. 

Priesthood in the church, 39, 40, 103. 

Primacy of the Roman See, 41, 42. 

Prince, Thomas, viii., 322, 332. 

Prisons in and about London, 77, 140, 141, 
142, 144. 

Privy Council, 78, 147, 166, 167, 204, 2C6, 
267, 26!), 270. 

Privye Church in London, 76. 

Prophesying, 239, 317, 353, 383, 405, 416. 

Protestantism, 49. See Reformation, 

Provincetown harbor, 308. 

Punchard, George, xi., 186, 265. 

Puritan Exodus, xi., 446. 

Puritans and Puritanism, x., 67-76, 85, 03, 
117-119, 121, 122, 123, 153, IGO, 167,168, 186, 
200, 211, 226, 237, 266, 295, 297, 383, 397, 
398, 399, 403, 408, 415, 419, 422, 423, 440, 
444, 445, 446, 448, 449, 451, 453, 455, 456, 
457, 462, 463, 471, 474, 477. 

Pursuivants, 141, 142, 197, 206. 



484 



Qiiadeqniua, S32-334. 

R. 

Ualeigh, Sir Walter, 91, 194, -iOO. 

Rattlesnake's skin, 357. 

Reformation in the 16tti century, 49-59. 

-, the English, 60-6G. 

without tarrying, 85, lOG, 163, IGS, 

196. 
Relics of Antichrist, 70. 
Rhode Island, 357. 
Ridley, Bishop, 6>. 
Right of individual reformation, 85, 98, 

133, 149, 196, 199. 
Ritualism, 69. 
Rojjiusou, John, 207, 219, 224, 227, 231, 232, 

234, 235, 238, 240-252, 254, 255, 258, 267, 

265, 276, 280, 284, 286, 288, 291, 292, 293, 
295, 298, 299-304, 339, 351, 352, 387, 393. 
398-403, 404, 407, 412, 419, 434 436, 444, 
477. 

Rogers, a preacher, 441. 
Rome, 41,42, 45, 46,72. 
Roswell, Sir Heury, 453. 
Rowland, Thomas, 76. 
Rubrics, 68. 

S. 
Sabbath, the Hebrew, 29. 
, the Christian, 99, 287, 239, 259, 811, 

31.5, 317, 318, 320, 321, 330, 345, 352, 353, 

397, 409, 464, 466, 46S. 
Sacerdotalism, 103, 476. 
Sacraments, 97, 107, 136, 239, 397. 
Sacrifice, 39, 40. 
Salem, 454, 471-476. 
Saltoustall, Sir Richard, 453. 
Samoset, 327,330, 331. 
Sanders, John, 370, 371. 
Sandys, Archbishop, 203, 204. 
, Sir Edwin, 204, 262, 203, 204, 205, 

266, 267. 
-, Sir Samuel, 204. 



Schaff, Philip, 3.3. 

Schism and Schismatic, 95, 142, 245, 249, 

250, 457. 
Schools, common, 847. 
Scrooby Manor-house, 194-Ttr,, 201-203. 
Separatist Church, -201, 204-215, 

294. 
Seals. See Sacraments. 
Se-baptist, 224. 

Self-love, Cushman's discourse on, 353. 
Separation of churches, 54, 75, 76, 199, 301, 

446, 475. 
Sejiaratists and Separatism, x., 93, 12.3, 125, 

131, 134, 137, 147, 106, ISO, 199, 205, 206, 

211, 233, 254, 266, 273, 294, 801, 302, 321, 



383, 391, 393, 3&4, 397, 39l=, 403, 412, 419, 

421, 423, 444, 445, 446, 448, 451, 455, 457, 

463, 467, 471, 475, 477. 
Seven Articles, 265. 
Shallops, 311, 312, 314, 301, 362, 371, 378, 

432. 
Sherley, James, 393, 395. 398, 430, 431, 441, 

442. 
Skelton, Samuel, 461,471-473. 
Siaiuie, John, 331. 
Smith, Captain John, 278, 280, 2^2, 317, 

390. 

, Ralph, 463, 467, 408, 470, 471. 

Smyth, John, 206, 222-224, 234. 
-, William, 187. 



Some, Robert, 98, 122, 104. 

Southampton, 284, 286, 304, 306, 310, 320. 

360. 
Southcont, Thomas, 458. 
Southwark Church, ISO, 1S7, 191, 194, 226, 

227. 
Sonthworth, Edward, 384. 
Spain, 254, 260, 201. 
Sparroiv, the, 301, 307, 309, 370, 378. 
Speedwell, the, 284, 285, 280, 304, 306, 349. 

421. 
Squauto, 331, 332, 338, 343, 348, 860, .^06. 
Staudlsh, Barbara, 3S5. 
, Miles, 312, 324, 326, 333, 33.5, 336, 

359, 370, 372, 375, 878, 383, 385, 400, 409, 

413,432,434,439,449. 
-, Rose, 385. 



Stanley, Arthur P., 32. 

Steele, Ashbel, 204. 

Sterrell, William, 1.53. 

Stewards iu Wesleyaniem, 21. 

Storehouse at Plymouth, 863. 

Strype, John, 130, 131, 144, 190, 204. 

Studley, Daniel, 135. 

Sumner, George, 232, 242. 

Sunday. See Sabbath. 

Supremacy, 61, 64, 74, 87, 97, 138, 147, 14S, 
149, 188, 207, 266. 

Swan, the, 364, 867. 

Synagogue, relation of the, to the primi- 
tive Christian church, 2S, 29. 

Synod of Dort, 245, 247, 290. 

Synods, 38, 53. 

T. 

Talbot, the, 464, 466-409. 

Teacher. See Elders. 

Temples of idolatry, 297-299. 

Thacker, Ellas, 85-88. 

Thanksgiving, 848, 349, 384. 

Tobacco, 333, 334, 464. 

Town-meeting, 323, 826, 327, 331, 336, 375, 

409. 
Trade. See Undertakers. 



INDEX. 



485 



Trades learned l)y the Pilgrims, 229, 230. 

Treaty, 334. 

Truce betweeu the Dutch and Spaiu, 

• 254. 

Tyndale, 64. 

U. 

Undertakers of the trade, 440, 442. 
Uniformity, 6S, 70, 138, 148, :iOT, 2T0, 412, 

440, 462. 
United States of the Netherlands, 271. 

See Netherlands. 

V. 

Vatican Council, 74. 

Vestments, 68, 73. 

Victoria, Queen, 115, 203. 

Virsjiuia, 210, 201, 263, 27'.», 308, 321, 322, 364, 

390, 391, 420, 437, 452. 
Company and Vii-ginia Council, 261, 

262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 

273, 279, 308, 309, 321. 

W. 

Waddiiigton, John, xi., 77, 135, 150, 153, 167, 

185, 227, 236, 272, 281. 
Wales, 155, 157, 158, 159, 101, 162, 1G7, 168, 

174, 178. 
Warwick, Countess of, 150. 
Water of New England, 312, 395, 396. 
Wesley, John, 20, 21, 155. 
Wesleyan Methodism, 20, 37. 
Wessagussett, 367, 368, 370, 371, 375, 376, 

379, 391, 392. 
Weston, Thomas, 274, 276, 277, 27S, 280, 281, 

284, 287, 321, 350, 351, 352, 354, 361, 362, 

364-366, 370, 391, 426. 
Weymouth, 367. 
Whately, Archbishop, 33, 24G. 



Whetcomb, Simon, 453. 

White, counselor ai law, 418, 419. 

, John, 446, 447, 451, 452. 

White, Roger, 434. 

, William, 340. 

Whitetield, George, 155. 

Whitgift, Archbishop, 94-109, 120, 142, 146, 
153,159,184,201. 

Widow, a church officer, 84. 

Wigwams, 313, 319. 

Wiucob, John, 273. 

Wine, 394. 

Winslow, Edward, 258, 273, 285, 286, 301, 
302, 314, 329, 332, 335, 340, 341, 342-346, 362, 
363, 368, 369, 370, 373-375, 368, 390, 393, 399, 
411, 412, 417, 418, 419, 424, 432, 477. 

, Elizabeth, 340. 

., Susanna, 340, 341. 



Winter, the first, at Plymouth, 323-327. 
Wiuthrop, John, 453, 466. 
Wituwamat, 376, 378. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 202. 
Wolstenholme, Sir John, 2G7-269, 423. 
Women in the church at Jerusalem, 18. 
Wycliffe, John, 60, 147. 
Wycliffism, 61, 62. 

Y. 

Yarmouth and Yarmouth Castle, 466. 

Yates, John, 424. 

Young, Alexander, viii., 213, 220, 221, 258, 
273, 302, 314, 318, 327, 329, 339, 353, 363, 
373, 390, 436, 447, 457, 459, 464, 466, 477. 

-, Justice, 98, 145. 

, Sir John, 453. 



Zurich, 79. 
Zwingli, 50, 53. 



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